A Host of Low Truths
by Genevastar
Summary: How will Ros's search for Lucas end? The end of my 'alternative' Series 9.  Disclaimer: I did not create these characters - just borrowing them .
1. Chapter 1

**A HOST OF LOW TRUTHS**

**CHAPTER ONE**

It was the itch that eventually pierced a gap in the fog shrouding her from the world around her. A few times it had thinned slightly, as if it were beginning to dissipate, but before her brain could register more than a distant, echoing ripple of mingled sounds it had closed in again, leaving her with nothing more tangible to hold to than the dull, heavy ache of her body. But now the persistent, infuriating tickling from dry, cracked skin was too much to ignore. Slowly, she fumbled with clumsy fingers towards the bridge of her nose, but when she feebly tried to scratch, they touched something smooth and her hand slipped. Again she tried; again the obstacle impeded her. She let out a whimper of frustration at being thwarted and swatted impotently at it.

"Hey, hey, hey. Wait a second. Slow down." The words were distorted, but she heard them and felt the firm grip of hands that stilled her own. "Steady, Miss Marshall. Look at me. Look at me, now."

As she felt the plastic cocoon of the oxygen mask lifted from her face, Ros's eyes blinked open. Her hand felt leaden, but she groaned with relief as she finally managed to drag her fingernails across the bridge of her nose. She felt something dabbing gently at her eyes, and the blurred shadow looming over her resolved into the smiling face of a woman in pale blue scrubs.

"Welcome back, Miss Marshall." More dabbing, and Ros's nostrils flared at the scent of the wet wipe that the nurse was applying to her face.

'_Water.__'_ Her tongue felt huge, and she could produce nothing beyond a pleading gurgle. The woman disappeared from her view for a moment, but before Ros could summon up the strength to protest, her eyes slid down the wall opposite her as the bed-frame was cranked into a more upright position.

"Here." The nurse leaned towards her. "Slowly. Let me help." She held the plastic beaker, and Ros sipped with painful weakness at the water. When she choked on it, the nurse wiped her lips and waited patiently until Ros had regained the strength to drink again.

"Are you in any pain?" she asked, when Ros feebly gestured that she had finished.

_Stupid __question._Ros gave a tiny, cautious shake of the head and groaned as the room yawed nauseatingly.

"Good." The nurse turned to scrutinise the monitoring machines alongside the bed. "I'll call your doctor." She glanced over her shoulder, and as she moved aside, Ros realised that they weren't the only people in the room.

"Who - " Her throat was still so sore that she could barely croak the words; the water she had drunk seemed to have been absorbed by the dryness like a shower in the desert. "Who's … that?"

The nurse followed her gaze towards the sleeping man slumped in a chair in the far corner of the room. His chin was stubble, his hair rumpled, and a hospital blanket was draped untidily over his legs.

"Your friend Liam. He's been a permanent fixture ever since they brought you from the ICU."

_Liam?_ The effort to think straight made Ros's head pound, but she knew that wasn't right. She closed her eyes for a second against the throbbing, and a voice whispered _Lucas.__ It__'__s __Lucas._

"Would you like me to wake him?"

"Yes. Please." Ros forced her eyes open again and watched as the woman crossed the room and shook the man's shoulder. "Mr Newton. Mr Newton!" At first his head merely rolled sideways and the shaking produced nothing more than a muffled grunt, but she persisted until he finally lifted his head and mumbled something incomprehensible.

"Rachel's awake!" The nurse was speaking in the over-bright, encouraging tones that she would have used to announce the arrival of breakfast to a confused geriatric. "Look here!"

'Liam' shook his head like a dog emerging from the river and squinted across the room.

"_Shit!__" _He leapt up, fought his feet free of the tangled blanket and strode across to the bed.

"Ro - Rachel." He grasped her hand, and Ros winced as the pressure of his grip caused the oxygen monitor still clipped to her finger to dig painfully into it. "God, at _last_!"

His eyes were puffy, bloodshot and encircled by dark rings of exhaustion, but despite the momentary slip of the tongue, she could see the warning in them.

"Hi … Liam." His lips curled in a fleeting smile at her response. Behind him, the nurse bustled briskly out of the room and closed the door behind her. Ros waited until her footsteps could be heard fading down the corridor.

"Where?" It hurt both her head and her throat to speak.

"St Thomas'," Lucas answered. "Nearest Harry could wangle to Thames House."

"He … all right? H – Harry."

"He's fine. Fine," Lucas answered. He poured another beaker of water, and Ros drank thankfully.

"How … long?"

"A week, give or take." She noticed a couple of dressings protruding beneath one rolled-up shirtsleeve and a row of stitches in his right temple. "You were in intensive care for three days."

Ros swallowed the last of the water. When Lucas went to take the beaker she mumbled 'I can' and reached out to replace it on the bedside table herself. The sudden stab of pain the movement caused in the region of her sternum made her yelp. Lucas snatched the cup from her.

"You _can__'__t,_" he said fiercely. "Lie still; you'll pull your stitches."

Ros subsided, waiting for the ripples of pain to ebb. She wanted to ask _what __stitches? _and learn what had been done to her, but a combination of pride and weakness stifled the words. She closed her eyes for a moment, gathering her strength.

"What - " a gasp of fear throttled her question as a series of powerful bangs – albeit slightly muffled by the double-glazing – sounded outside and the percussion wave rattled the windows.

"It's all right." Lucas tightened his grip on her hand as she trembled. "It's all right. It's just fireworks. There's a display on the South Bank. Look, you can see the lights. It's all right, Ros."

Unseen under the sheets, Ros screwed the edge of her hospital gown into her fist, and took several deep breaths to steady herself. Lucas's eyes were anxious.

"What … what about … Low -" she stopped in frustration as the man's name slid tormentingly, just out of reach of her memory, "… Home Sec?"

She knew the answer from the way Lucas lowered his eyes before he spoke.

"They did their best but he died in theatre, Ros. I'm sorry."

She looked away from him and stared out of the window at the reflected sparkle of exploding fireworks dancing over the dark swathe of the river.

_Harry__'__s __sacked.__You__'__re __my __security__ chief __now._ The man had been a politician, calculating, duplicitous, with an eye to the main chance, like all of them. It was the nature of the beast. But he had shown courage too; Ros remembered him urging her to leave, and then trying, despite the effect of the drug, to lessen the burden on her as she struggled to haul him down the corridor to safety.

_How long have we got, Ros?_

There was another muffled crump from outside, so similar to the sound of the bomb exploding seconds after he spoke those words that Ros could barely contain the wave of panic that broke over her. She felt Lucas's hands enclose hers.

"Ros. Ros?" She looked round, but said nothing. "I'm sorry I left you." He bit his lip. His eyes were dark. "I should have stayed. It was cowardly."

"It was … your job. It was an order." She coughed and flinched. "And it was right. No … guilt trips."

"I was coming back. I thought there was time."

Ros pointed shakily at his arm. "Is that … how you got hurt?"

"It's nothing." Lucas shrugged dismissively. "Flying debris. Concussion. Few cuts, sprained ankle and a bloody sore arse when I landed on it. Nothing like yours."

Ros was about to ask what exactly that meant when the door re-opened and the nurse came in, followed by a young doctor. Both deferentially made way for an older man dressed in a suit and tie who entered in their wake, obviously in the process of finishing a conversation on his mobile. He slipped it back into his jacket pocket and approached the bed. Lucas rose, nodded to him and took a few steps back.

"I was your surgeon, Miss … Marshall, is it?" The man spoke briskly as he eased the bedclothes down.

_For __the __moment._ "Yes. Rachel Marshall," Ros added helpfully, as the surgeon impatiently waved Lucas out of his way.

"So, how are you feeling now you're finally back in the land of the living?"

"All right," Ros said cautiously. "Tired … little bit woozy."

"Well, neither of those are unexpected after what happened to you." The surgeon snapped instructions at the nurse and the curtains were hastily pulled around the bed as he continued his examination.

"What _did_ happen?" Ros ventured. She wasn't sure that she wanted to hear too much detail, but the days that had passed since the last thing she _could_ remember were a complete and unsettling blank, like the uncharted territory on a medieval map. Whatever dragons might be roaming it, she wanted to know about them. As she spoke, the surgeon had been removing a large dressing on her chest. Now the last of it came away, and she bit her lip to stifle a gasp at both the stinging sensation and the sight of a pattern of stitches that looked like a grid for an oversized game of noughts and crosses.

"Hmm. Good. Good. Healing well." He rolled the sheet and blanket down to the very end of the bed and inspected her legs; only then did Ros see the extensive bruising and cuts. A wide dressing ran from her left knee almost to her ankle, and again he removed it and scrutinised a healing gash underneath. "Yes, good." His penetrating gaze rested on her face for a moment. "Sit forward for me, please."

With his help, Ros managed to do so. She felt him repeat the same inspection procedure and heard him cluck his tongue. "Can you raise your right arm, please? Slowly. It'll be stiff."

Ros obeyed. He was right; it also ached, and instinctively, she stopped trying to raise it higher.

"Right, lower it, thank you." She did, and tried to suppress a shiver. The surgeon re-tied her gown, for which she was grateful; although it was far too thin to provide any warmth, it did at least restore some of her dignity.

"How much do you remember of what happened?" he asked.

"The explosion," Ros answered. "After that, nothing."

"Well, it seems that you were knocked unconscious by the blast. By the time you were found and rescued from the hotel you had lost a great deal of blood. We had to do extensive emergency thoracic surgery," he gestured towards the stitches, "transfuse, and deal with several nasty gashes from flying debris – one on your leg, a particularly bad one on your back – and a lot of minor ones. You also had a badly dislocated shoulder, although that didn't seem to be from the explosion."

_Trying __to __move __the __Home __Secretary._ Suddenly the man's name popped back into her mind. _Lawrence. __Andrew__ Lawrence._ She was aware of the surgeon watching her intently. "You went into cardiac arrest in the operating theatre, and again while you were in intensive care. We had you on respiratory support for three days. You're a very fortunate young woman, Miss Marshall; you're lucky to be here. I actually warned your father that he was probably going to lose you."

_My __father? _Ros stared at him. "He's been here?"

The surgeon gave a thin smile as he picked up the medical file clipped to the end of her bed and read the latest data.

"Certainly he's been here. He hardly left your side while you were in the ICU, Miss Marshall, except when Mr Newton replaced him. He slept there all three nights – in so far as anyone _can _sleep in these damned chairs. I don't think he even tried; just sat there, talking to you or watching you, hour after hour. You're lucky to have someone who cares so much." He slotted the file back into its place. "I think we can safely say that you're through the worst. Your stats are good and your injuries now are just a question of convalescence and time."

Ros swallowed, and forced out the most frightening question.

"How much time?"

"That depends to a great extent on your own determination," the surgeon answered, and Ros felt a spark of irritation at the evasiveness of his reply. _Bloody __man __should __be __a __politician._ Grudgingly, she reminded herself that he _had_ saved her life. "I'd say a couple more weeks with us – you're going to need physio to rebuild your strength – and we'd normally offer you trauma counselling as well; it's available to anyone who's caught up in a terrorist attack. As far as returning to work goes … I imagine that's up to your employers at the Foreign Office."

_You __can __keep __the __sodding __counselling._ If she _had_ to go through that, she would have it done at the 'Foreign Office' where she wouldn't be mistaken for a junior diplomat on protocol duty. Ros nodded. "Thank you. I - er – I appreciate all you've done. My … father will, too."

"Just my job." The surgeon gave a quick, professional smile, his mind, no doubt, already on his next case. "After the nurse has re-done your dressings, perhaps you might like to contact him. I'm sure he'll be glad to hear of your recovery. Get as much rest as you can. It's a good healer." He whisked a corner of the curtain back and was gone.

Ros leaned, turned, raised and stretched compliantly as the nurse expertly cleaned her wounds and applied new dressings. Her head wasn't co-operating very well with the rest of her; it pounded and swam at all the wrong moments, but Ros gritted her teeth and kept silent, determined not to let the nurse become aware of her discomfort. She strained to get a glimpse of the wider room through the crack in the curtain, wanting to know if Lucas was still out there.

"Liam's gone to phone your father," the nurse said reassuringly. "He was on notice to contact him at once if you came round." Ros tried not to wince as she cleaned her injured leg gently but thoroughly, and asked, as casually as she could: "Did he – _ow!__ – _did he come alone … my father?"

"Most of the time." The nurse ripped open a fresh package of dressings. "Your cousin came with him once. Eliza, was it?"

_Eliza? _Ros took a guess. "Dark-haired, blue-grey eyes, long skirts?"

"That's the one." The nurse rearranged the bedclothes. Ros had been getting thoroughly chilled, and she pulled them close around her with relief.

_Ruth._ Which meant her 'father' was Harry Pearce. Jocelyn Myers would have been accompanied too, but by at least one prison officer from Wormwood Scrubs. Just for a moment Ros felt a wave of melancholy wash over her. Her father hadn't responded to any of her attempts to make contact with him for five years; all her information about him came indirectly through Harry, who had once served in army intelligence with the prison governor. He was a vengeful man who could keep a grudge warm for years. She knew that. But still she had hoped … just for a few moments, she had let herself hope that he might have cared enough to come, despite it all. For an awful second she felt the prickling of tears in her eyes and swiftly looked away from the nurse as the woman cleared up the debris of discarded packaging. _Weakness, __that__'__s __all. __Snap __out __of __it. __Wallowing __won__'__t __make __him__ care._

The thought brought back the words of the surgeon. _You__'__re__ lucky __to __have __someone __who __cares __so __much. _As the nurse pulled back the curtains Ros looked around for Lucas, but the room was empty. She tried to crane towards the door and was rewarded with an admonitory spasm of pain in her shoulder.

"Don't worry, he'll be back soon." The nurse smiled. "What would you say to a cup of tea?"

Ros's normal answer to that would have been a sarcastic put-down. She hated tea – strong Colombian coffee was her drink of choice – but now the idea was the answer to prayer.

"I'd love one. Thank you."

She leaned carefully back into her pillows as the nurse trotted out, and stared out into the darkness. She had no idea what time it was, or, she suddenly realised, what day, come to that. She tried to remember on what day the bombing had occurred and count forward. Had the crisis been resolved? Maybe, if Lucas had got the Pakistani president out in time, but then with Andrew Lawrence dead … The attempt to weigh up the ifs and maybes made her head spin, and she closed her eyes and let her mind go blank again. She was drifting helplessly towards the outer edges of sleep when she sensed rather than heard movement and turned her head in its direction.

"Ros." She blinked her eyes open and waited for her view to swim into focus. Lucas was standing there, holding a tray with a mug of tea and a plate bearing two slices of toast. He still looked like a tramp who'd been kept on a regime of sleep deprivation for a week, but he was smiling. As he bent to place the tray on the table, Ros saw the man behind him. His usual velvet-collared overcoat had been replaced with a crumpled raincoat that looked as if it had been thrown in haste over jeans and a sweater, but a dishevelled Harry Pearce was beaming at her.

"Ros," he echoed. "Welcome back."

**_Reviews are always very much appreciated! :)_**


	2. Chapter 2

"I know, I know! Be patient, Miss Marshall." Helped by the physiotherapist, Ros levered herself awkwardly out of the wheelchair and into the chair by her bed. She blew out a long breath and glared at the woman. "I'm _trying_."

"You're certainly that," the therapist retorted. "You're doing yourself no favours, Rachel, pushing yourself harder than your body can take. All you'll end up doing is making it push back. And that'll be no contest. You'll be doubling the amount of time you spend in this five-star resort of ours, and I'm guessing that'll not be making you reach for a Guinness to celebrate." An impish grin took the edge off her words. "Or us."

Ros snorted. This was the third physiotherapist to be assigned to her and the only one to have stayed the course. She had reduced the first, a recently-qualified youngster ten years her junior, to a gibbering wreck by the end of a session. The second, a charming Arab from Damascus – although Ros would never have admitted to finding him charming if called on it - had lasted longer but thrown in the towel when she lost her temper and called him a syphilitic camel – and to add insult to injury, in his own language. This one was a Belfast Irishwoman; she had a tongue that sometimes rivalled Ros's own for sharpness, a robust sense of humour and the perspicacity to understand the fear that underlay her charge's vitriolic impatience. Now she blithely ignored the rules and thumped down on the edge of Ros's bed.

"Look, you bloody eejit, instead of chewing up the wallpaper, think back to where you started from. You'd not have made that bloody window then if young Liam hadn't picked you up and carried you there, so you wouldn't."

"_I __know,__" _Ros said, through clenched teeth. At her own insistence, and despite the warnings of the medical staff, she had wanted to get out of her prison in bed the day after she had regained consciousness. Her goal had been to cross the room, but the mere effort of getting herself horizontal had left her wet with sweat and shivering like a beaten dog. Without Lucas bracing her on one side and Harry providing support on the other, she would have ended up on the floor before she took a step. As it was she had tottered no more than three before her legs crumpled under her. Lucas had caught her and, to her utter humiliation, _carried_ her in his arms to the window. Things _had_ improved since then – improved enormously, but not enough to satisfy her. Walking up and down the corridor with a stick, managing to climb a few steps without actually wheezing for breath and being able to raise her arm far enough to dress herself were not going to get her back to where she longed to be – on the Grid.

"I've told you, you could be out of here in a week if you'd someone to take care of you, Rachel. We'll not be letting you out to an empty flat just so you can do something daft and undo all the good work you've done, girl."

Ros said nothing. She wasn't getting into_ that_ conversation again. Despite her repeated assertions to the contrary, Claire Linehan seemed unable to believe that she didn't have an unacknowledged husband hidden away somewhere, and she had dropped a couple of hints about 'young Liam's' status in her patient's life too. Ros yawned ostentatiously. Claiming fatigue was sometimes the only way to get the physiotherapist off her case. Claire was good at her job, and she remained resolutely unflappable in the face of Ros's moods. For that Ros grudgingly admired her, but it was difficult to avoid unwanted conversations when you were prone on a massage table or labouring your way through an exercise routine. And over the last few nights her sleep had been disrupted by nightmares. They were a hideous, frightening patchwork of the hotel bombing, Jo's death, her last meeting with Adam and the showdown with her father during his attempted coup. As a result she was tired and tetchy, and her yearning to go home, which was growing every day, was stronger than ever. She waited for the physio to take the hint.

"You'll need your rest now." Claire sounded exasperated, but she got up. "Shall I be asking them to send your food?" When Ros nodded wearily, she said, "See you tomorrow, then," and, to Ros's immense relief, left the room. Once she was sure she was gone, Ros got up and, with the help of her crutch, limped across the room to the window. Although some of her stitches had been removed, she still couldn't really stand erect without discomfort, and the minute she over-exerted herself it hurt to breathe. She leaned against the windowpane and gazed out. Harry had meant well by having her brought to St Thomas's, but it wasn't the ideal location. Every time she looked towards the Houses of Parliament she thought of Andrew Lawrence, and a feeling of guilt and inadequacy closed her throat. Even worse, she could almost see the bulk of Thames House looming solid and imperturbable on the corner of Millbank in permanent, silent reproach.

Behind her she heard the door click open, but she deliberately didn't turn round. _Sod__ them, __whoever __they __are. _She kept her eyes on a barge making its sluggish way down the river until the footsteps behind her stopped.

"What's the matter?" Harry Pearce asked.

Startled, Ros turned and knocked her crutch to the ground. "What are you doing here?"

Harry raised his eyebrows. "Good to see you too." He retrieved the crutch and held it out to her. Ros shook her head.

"I can manage." Defiantly, she walked unsteadily back to the bed and sat on it. "Is something wrong?"

"Not with me," Harry said pointedly. "I was summoned to the Home Office. I thought I might make a detour on the way back. I just ran into your physio. She said you're doing well." He waited, but she didn't answer. "Try not to look _quite_ so enthusiastic about it, Rosalind."

"Not well enough to get out of here apparently," Ros said sourly. "Seems I need someone at home to hold my hand and tell me bedtime stories."

"Ros," Harry said reprovingly. "Be fair. You need someone at home to help you do the things you can't do yet – or can't do safely. If only to make sure you don't try and do them anyway."

"Harry, I'm not bloody incompetent, for God's sake!" Angrily, Ros thumped the pillow with her fist and shoved it back into place.

"No, you're not. You're im_patient_," he countered. "Look, Ros, I know you want out of here. I'd be champing at the bit, too." A wry smile flickered across his face. "And between you, me and the stable door, you're a bloody awful patient, and the staff aren't fighting to hang on to you either."

"Then why don't they trust me and let me _go__ home_?" Ros snapped.

Harry's reply was cut short by a knock at the door and a hospital orderly brought in a tray of food. Ros looked daggers at him.

"And you can put that - " she caught Harry's look, stopped, and finished stiffly, "down on the table. Thanks."

"Eat it, then," Harry suggested, when the man had gone.

Ros bristled at the command in his voice, but almost simultaneously realised that if she didn't, she was giving both him and the hospital more ammunition to use in refusing to release her. Unwillingly, she carefully got back into bed and started on the soup, which was the colour of _borscht_ and the consistency of Ribena. Harry watched her for a few moments, probably expecting her to dribble it down the front of herself, Ros thought resentfully. When she had almost finished, he said: "Look, I'd put you up myself but my bedrooms and the bathroom are upstairs, and I'm not exactly the Domestic Goddess. The physio says you need another week. If you see that through without sulking - "

Ros stared at him indignantly. "I haven't sulked since I was six years old, Harry."

Harry merely looked back at her, but there was a twinkle in his eye that warned Ros she would be better off not pursuing the point.

" – then I've had a word with Lucas, and he says you can go and stay with him."

Ros felt herself flush crimson. "Harry, you shouldn't have_ done_ that! I don't need to be passed around like a ticking parcel or – or bloody charity orphan of the month! "

Harry sighed. "Let me put it another way, Ros. You'd get what you want, and Lucas will get what I think he needs. He still feels desperately guilty about having left you with Lawrence." He hesitated for a second. "You know what a dreadful burden a feeling of guilt can be. It would help _both _of you if you'd give him the opportunity to look after you for a while." He helped himself to one of the two apples lying on the tray and took a large bite. "And he doesn't seem himself to me at the moment. He's been very ... distant … lately. Seems anxious about something. Preoccupied."

"Tends to go with the territory when you're Section Chief," Ros said sardonically. "Anyway, I don't imagine playing Doctors and Nurses with me would do much for his nerves."

Harry shook his head. "It's not that kind of preoccupied. I know he's not over-enamoured of our new junior officers." He took another bite of the apple with a savage crunch that suggested he thought the fruit to be at least partially responsible for his concern. "He's not alone in that, but I don't think that's all it is. But he certainly misses having you around. And he trusts you. It might help him too – and it would certainly do you good … if you really want to escape from Alcatraz, that is."

Ros stretched her aching left leg. Oh, she wanted to escape all right. Desperately so - to escape from the ghost of Andrew Lawrence watching her across the river and lurking in the corridors behind every sign to the operating theatre, to escape from the sense of her own uselessness that she found more suffocating than the shortness of breath caused by her still healing lung. But she didn't want to do it at any price, and Harry 'having a word' with Lucas and lumbering _him_ with the burden of being responsible for her, was far in excess of her own personal inflation rate.

"I've lived on my own since I was eighteen, Harry. Playing 'house' isn't really my thing. And I don't like charity. Nice idea, but no."

"Pity." Harry finished the apple. "Still, it wasn't mine."

Ros frowned. "Your what?"

"My idea," Harry answered. "Lucas's." He lobbed the apple core neatly into the bin.

"But you said - " Ros began. She stopped as Harry raised a hand like a traffic policeman waving down an errant driver.

"No, you _thought._ Anyway," he glanced up, "you can tell him yourself," as Lucas walked into the room.

"Tell me what?" Lucas enquired, as Ros impaled Harry Pearce with the most basilisk-type stare she could summon up. He looked back at her with a degree of equanimity that only increased her fury at being so neatly cornered. Lucas squeezed her uninjured shoulder and pointed at the second apple. "Don't you want that, Ros? I'm starving."

"Oh, help yourself!" Ros said sarcastically, and threw it at him, ignoring Harry's grin. At that second his mobile rang. Harry muttered an apology, got up and left the room. Ros glared at Lucas. "Why are you so hungry, skip breakfast this morning?"

He shrugged. "_I_ don't get my meals served on a tray, you know." He hesitated and put the apple down again. "Bad day?"

Ros was about to explode at him not to be so bloody clever when she saw the sympathy and concern in his eyes.

"So would yours be if you needed to be stuck in here being fussed over and preached at for God knows how many weeks," she snapped.

"You _don__'__t_ need to be," Lucas said tentatively. "Just five days." He waited, and when Ros, tense with a mixture of anger, embarrassment and frustration, didn't answer, added, "Nice pyjamas."

_Yeah._ It was he who had gone to her flat and brought them and a bathrobe after Ros had complained that she was always cold wearing the flimsy cotton garments issued by the hospital. He had also supplied her iPod, toiletries and books, and Ruth had told Ros that he had watered her plants and kept a regular eye on the empty flat, although Lucas himself hadn't mentioned that. Ros hadn't known whether to be bewildered or suspicious at all the trouble he was going to; it certainly wasn't in order to earn her gratitude, since she most definitely hadn't shown him any. She risked a sideways glance at him.

"Harry's setting up for you to see the counsellor at Thames House, you know," Lucas said. "You could drive in with me, keep an eye on the Grid, make sure I'm not dropping too many clangers. And meet our newbies." He rolled his eyes. "Tariq's got a new girlfriend; says he needs your sartorial guidance. Everyone misses you."

"Yeah, like the CIA missed Osama Bin Laden," Ros said caustically. "What would you feed me on? Stolen apples?"

Lucas grinned. "Never embarrass the Service." The mantra was drummed into every recruit from his earliest encounter with the recruitment panel. "I'd pay for them."

"I'm a bloody awful patient," Ros said. "Harry says so, so that makes it official." She swallowed, hating the need to make her next admission. "And I … I get nightmares sometimes."

Lucas pulled a face. "So, we can have them together. Troubles shared and all that guff."

Ros picked up her fork and pushed the congealing remains of the pasta around her plate. Finally, she said helplessly: "Lucas, I don't do company. _Friends __annoy __you_ – remember?"

"So I'll be your colleague," Lucas said. "As I remember, they're OK? I _will_ look after you properly. Promise." He reached over, picked a stray pasta shell from her sleeve and rubbed lightly at the stain. It was a casual gesture with nothing intimate about it, but Ros flinched involuntarily.

"Lucas!" It was Harry. "Time to go! Ros, I'll be back tomorrow. Behave yourself."

Hastily, Lucas kissed her on the cheek, winked, and hurried out in his wake. Ros lay back and closed her eyes with a sigh. God knows she was tempted. She liked Lucas, and of all the people she knew he was most likely to understand and accept her sometimes obsessive need for privacy without becoming offended by it. She couldn't imagine him trying to intrude on it. He wasn't much more forthcoming about personal matters than she was; in two years she had learnt almost nothing of his family or personal interests outside the Service. And it would be an enormous relief to leave Rachel Marshall behind in the hospital laundry basket with the paper underwear and dirty sheets.

"Miss Marshall! Time for your iron!"

The offensively cheerful voice of the nurse made goose pimples scamper all over Ros's body. Partly because of losing so much blood and partly as a result of losing even more weight, she had become anaemic, and the powers-that-be had decreed that the best way to deliver the iron she needed was by haemoglobin injection in the buttocks every other day. Ros's lifelong fear of needles had been turned by Juliet Shaw's attempt to kill her with a lethal injection into a barely-controllable terror. Last time, Lucas had been here, and, ignoring her admittedly unconvincing protests that she was fine, had sat by the bed stroking her head and telling her a funny story about Malcolm Wynne-Jones. It was the first time Ros could remember anyone offering her comfort like that since her father used to cuddle her on his lap when she was a little girl frightened of thunderstorms.

She submitted to the injection with all her muscles stiff from apprehension, biting the pillow to prevent herself making a sound. When the nurse had helped her to settle back into a sitting position and gone, she picked up her book but didn't open it.

_I__'__ll__ look __after __you __properly. __Promise._ Harry was right. There was a suppressed anxiety in Lucas's eyes and behind his words. Perhaps the bombing had affected him too, more than he was letting on. She was surprised that Harry had made him acting Section Chief. Lucas was an excellent field officer, but he wasn't the stuff that leaders were made of. Maybe he was finding the pressure of the post harder to cope with than he had expected. If he was, she might be able to help him – and feel like less of a burden herself.

_Keep __it __up, __Myers, __you __might __even __persuade __yourself. _She set the book aside, slotted in the earphones of her iPod and let the rushing musical waters of the Moldau sweep her away from St Thomas's. Perhaps tomorrow she would find the courage to swallow her pride and let Lucas do the same thing.

For the next five days she took her drugs without demur, did her physiotherapy without complaint and ate without objection everything that was put in front of her. She told her doctors she was sleeping well, and struggled with the nightmares alone, quivering in silence under the blankets when they woke her, and muffling her occasional tears into the pillow. At the end of the week her efforts paid off when the medical team and Claire Linehan agreed to release her into Lucas's care (he, with a teasing grin, referred to it as 'custody') the following day. He had told her he would be there in the late afternoon, but failed to appear. Ros wasn't especially perturbed; better than anyone she knew that the Service was no respecter of the social arrangements of its officers, so she dressed in the clothes that he had brought her and schooled herself to patience with a half-read novel while she waited for him.

She was just reaching the _denouement_ when Lucas hurried into the room. Ros looked up and instantly realised that she was facing a mystery far deeper than the one the writer had been about to solve. Lucas was sheet-white, radiating tension, and with some alarm she noticed that his hands were shaking.

"What on earth's the matter?" She gestured out of the window. "You look as if you've seen a ghost wandering the Embankment."

He shook his head, but she could see the enormous effort it took him.

"I'm fine." He rubbed his hands together, whether because they were cold or because he was trying to conceal their unsteadiness from her Ros wasn't sure. "Are you all signed out and ready to go, then?"

"Sure," Ros answered, trying to read his expression. There was something in his eyes – fear, possibly, maybe a trace of anger. She wasn't sure, but it was more than the preoccupation to which Harry had referred, and it disturbed her. Whatever it was, she knew that Lucas wasn't going to tell her about it, not now. As she got to her feet, Ros resolved silently that he would … later. She carefully pulled on her coat as he picked up her bag. He had himself under control again now; this time his smile was genuine and warmed his eyes too as he gave her a swift hug.

"Come on, then, Rachel! Let's go home."

_**As**__**you**__**know,**__**reviews**__**are**__**very**__**much**__**appreciated!**_


	3. Chapter 3

When they walked out of the hospital building into the car park Ros stopped and took a deep, appreciative breath of air. Tainted by the smell of petrol fumes and stagnant river water it might be, but it was blessedly free of the scent of antiseptic and hospital food, and, best of all, it _wasn__'__t_ dry and criminally over-heated. When Lucas looked quizzically at her, she shook herself.

"Sorry. I'd almost forgotten what fresh air tastes like."

He smiled, but mechanically; he seemed distracted, and was darting glances in both directions along the river embankment, almost, Ros thought, puzzled, as if he felt himself to be under surveillance. He led the way to his car at a pace she couldn't quite keep up with, and it was only when they were clear of the area and well on their way to his flat in Clapham that he seemed to relax.

"All right?" he asked, as they headed south.

_I __think __I __should __be __asking __you __that._ She smiled. "Yeah, I'm fine. And I'm not planning on answering that question more than once a day, Lucas."

He rolled his eyes. "_Ingratitude __is __treason __to __mankind._"

Ros laughed. "Oh, hell. Death by quotation. Now I _know_ you've been spending too much time with Harry."

Lucas returned her smile, lifted his hand from the wheel and gave hers a quick squeeze. "God, it's good to have you back, Ros. If I'd done that with either of our two new bright sparks they'd have had to Google the bloody words first to find out what I meant."

"They can't be that bad," Ros objected.

"You'll see." Lucas negotiated a roundabout and turned left. "Here we go. Welcome to Casa North."

There were four steps up to the front door of his building, but when he went to take Ros's arm she waved him off. She still had to take a disproportionate amount of weight on her right leg, but she was pleased to note that she got only slightly out of breath between the car and the door; all her work on the physiotherapy was paying off. She followed Lucas into the flat and looked at him expectantly.

"Right. The official National Trust guided tour." He showed her the living room, kitchen, toilet and bathroom and then pushed open the last remaining door. "Here you go." He ushered her in. "The TV's a bit ancient, but I thought you might like to watch in bed or something." He hesitated. "Is it all right?"

"Yes and no." Ros looked around the room and took in not only the small portable television at the end of the bed but the vase of orchids – her favourite flowers - on the chest of drawers. Freshly-laundered towels were piled on the bottom of the bed, and a small basket containing some of the shower gels and moisturisers she used regularly stood on top of them. He had gone to a lot of trouble, none of which disguised the fact that this was his bedroom, _not_ the spare room in which she had expected to be sleeping. "And where are _you_ planning on getting your beauty sleep?" She pointed enquiringly towards the garden.

That engaging smile lit up his usually solemn face. "Sleeping-bag on the sofa. Ros," hurriedly, as if he wanted to forestall her objection, "I spent best part of eight years on a straw mattress or the floor. That's luxury. Look, I really wanted you to come. I thought you might not if I told you before. You're not going to flounce out on me, are you?"

_Hardly,_ Ros thought wryly. He was right; she _wouldn__'__t_ have come if she'd known that by doing so she was evicting him from his own bed, but she was here now. She met his eyes and thought back to his anxiety at the hospital. While she was here, she was going to use the opportunity to find out _exactly_ what that was all about.

"I don't do flounce," she said dryly. She looked at her watch. "Though I might have a minor hissy fit if you don't feed me soon. You made me miss my gourmet dinner at the hospital." She shuddered. "Fish fingers and mushy peas on Mondays."

"Ugh." Lucas looked disgusted. "How does a cheese and mushroom omelette with some salad sound?"

"Like heaven," she admitted. His face lit up.

"OK, then I'll make it and you make yourself comfortable somewhere. Oh, hang on. I forgot your bag. I went over to your place and grabbed you some more spare clothes. I tried to find the ones you mentioned, but I've probably got it all wrong. You can have a look while I'm in the kitchen."

He disappeared back into the street. Ros wandered into the living room and gazed around. It was very tidy, with everything neatly shelved and stacked, but Ros recognised in it the same stamp of impersonality that marked her own. The room could have been anyone's. There were no pictures of family or friends, just as there were none on display to a casual visitor to her own flat. She did have a photograph of Adam Carter, and another of herself with her father taken years ago in the Andes, but she kept them in her bedroom, well away from prying eyes and judgemental minds.

"Here." She jumped; for a big man, Lucas had the gift of quiet movement. He handed her a small travel holdall and a bottle bag. "See if I've got what you wanted. And this is to celebrate your return. I'll get started."

He flashed her a smile and turned for the kitchen. Ros left the holdall on the bed, thinking she would examine the contents later, pulled out the bottle of champagne and followed him. As she came in, he was pushing what looked like an old-fashioned cardboard suitcase into a top cupboard. He closed the door firmly on it.

"Shall I open that?" he asked. "Here, let me. Sit down."

Ros took a seat. "Nice kitchen." He seemed perfectly at ease now although just for a split second she had thought she had seen wariness in his eyes. She gave herself a mental slap on the wrist. Two hours out of the hospital, still on sick leave, and she was already playing the paranoid intelligence officer.

"Thanks." He poured two glasses of champagne and handed her one. "_Za __zdorovye._" They clinked glasses and drank. "I think we should call your daddy."

"He won't take my - " Ros stopped abruptly, feeling the blood rush into her face as she realised her mistake. "Oh, you – you mean Harry. Yes, we should." She was speaking quickly to deflect his attention from her slip. She was sure Lucas knew all the salacious details about her father; _somebody_ on the Grid would have told him at some stage, even if Harry, who was always protective of her still acute sensitivity on the issue, hadn't, but the last thing she wanted was to discuss the matter now. "Want some help?"

Lucas brought out a salad bowl and started chopping ingredients. "No way, you're convalescing, remember?' He was just making the dressing when his mobile rang. "Talk of the devil." He flicked the phone on and said: "Don't panic, Harry, I've got your 'daughter'. In one piece, and on the champagne. Medicinal purposes only, obviously." He grinned at Ros and handed the mobile to her.

"Ros. How are you feeling?" Harry's voice was brisk but there was a warmth of concern in it that _was_ almost paternal, she thought. She waited a second to be certain that her voice would be absolutely steady when she spoke.

"Can't answer that, Harry. I already told Lucas I'll only say I'm fine once a day."

"Then you'd best ration yourself this week." He sounded amused. "The psychologist's expecting you downstairs at ten on Friday morning."

_Shit._"Harry!" she wailed. "I only just got out of one bloody prison. Don't I even get a week's grace for good behaviour?"

Harry murmured something about syphilitic camels. Lucas laughed.

"Do you want to get back in the saddle?" A pause. "Ros, I know perfectly well you're glaring at this phone enough to put the battery into meltdown, but if you do, you're going to have to do this first. Without the option, I'm afraid. There's a price to pay for being a heroine, you know."

"I'm _not_ a bloody heroine, Harry," Ros shot back, "and the first person who calls me one will wish they hadn't."

"I do." He sighed. "I promised David Murray that you'd do this without a fuss, Ros."

_More __fool __you._ Ros was about to say it when she remembered the many hours Harry had spent with her in the intensive care unit. When the doctors had thought she was unlikely to pull through, it was he who had made sure that her family knew about it. He had even applied for Jocelyn Myers to be released for a few hours on humanitarian grounds – an offer that her _real_ father had turned down. She was hugely in debt to Harry Pearce. That wasn't going to make her dread the 'talking therapies' so beloved of the Service any less, but it _would_ make her co-operate with them.

"OK. Let's not disappoint him, I know he'll be looking forward to it." She heard Harry's wheezing laugh despite the hiss and crackle of frying omelette. "See you on Friday then, Harry."

"It'll be good to have you back where you belong. Don't bully Lucas." She smiled. "And take care of yourself. Night, Ros."

"Bully me," Lucas repeated disbelievingly as he laid out plates and cutlery. "I don't think so."

"I wouldn't be so sure," Ros said mildly. "I was expelled from the International School in Lima for bullying, you know."

Lucas frowned. "Come on, someone told me you were Head Girl."

"That was later, in Bangkok." Ros watched him as he stirred the omelette mixture into the frying pan.

"Must have been strange, moving from school to school like that all the time."

Ros sipped her champagne. "I didn't really know any different. We followed my father, so we moved every two to three years. In a way it made things easier; your past didn't follow you around, so you had a clean slate wherever you were. You could be a completely different person if you felt like it."

"Good preparation for this job, then." Lucas put the salad down on the table and started to toss it. "We don't know who we're meant to be half the time."

"I suppose. Talking of which, did you see any of my neighbours when you've been to the flat?" To her neighbours, Ros was a legal secretary for an unspecified trading company.

"Only the old lady who lives across the landing. I told her you were on holiday on the Cote d'Azur."

"If only," Ros said dryly, and finished her drink. When Lucas offered to re-fill her glass she shook her head. "I've probably still got antibiotics bubbling around in there somewhere. Harry'll go ballistic if I end up on my backside from getting tipsy."

"Ready to eat, then?" When she nodded, he served up the omelette and sliced some bread while she helped herself to salad. "Hope it's okay."

It was more than okay, Ros thought, as she started to eat. They chewed in silence for a while until she said: "Where did you learn to cook?"

Lucas laughed. "You don't need to sound _quite_ so incredulous, Ros. Girlfriends, over the years." His mouth tightened. "Elizaveta mainly, though. I can still do a fairly good_ borscht _thanks to her, so the marriage wasn't a complete failure."

Bitterness turned his voice hard. Ros forked up some more omelette but didn't immediately eat it.

"I wouldn't describe it as a failure, Lucas. I don't know many marriages that could survive the husband being left to rot in a Russian jail for eight years."

"Yeah, well." He smiled, but it was hollow. "I don't think Casanova has anything to fear from me. What with her … and Sarah."

Ros shrugged. "We all make mistakes. The job doesn't help." For a moment the image of Adam bleary-eyed, rumpled and smiling, waking her with coffee in bed, flashed into her mind. Ruthlessly, she drove it out. "We shouldn't let ourselves be haunted by them." She hesitated, and then went on, "Like your ghost on the Embankment." His head jerked up. "What happened there, Lucas?"

For a moment he didn't answer, and then his lips curled slightly. "You don't miss a trick, do you?"

"It was a bit difficult to miss," Ros pointed out. "I thought I was going to have to yell for the crash team."

He half-smiled, but she knew he was uneasy. Whenever he was uncomfortable about something, Lucas would run his hand over his mouth or round his chin. He was doing it now. She went on eating.

"Old friend," he said at last. "I haven't seen him for years. _Years._I was barely out of my teens when we last met. I was halfway up the steps from the embankment and suddenly there he was, out of nowhere. I didn't even see where he came from. Just heard him say my name." He raked a hand through his hair. "He had one of those distinctive voices you don't forget, you know. I'd have known it anywhere. It was a hell of a shock. Like one of those things in Harry Potter, what are they called? Whoozits that turn time back on itself. Caught me right off the bat."

Ros nodded thoughtfully. She had had the experience herself. In a city of thirteen million people you'd think it wouldn't happen, but it was surprising how many officers in the intelligence services had stories about the time they'd had to duck into a changing room in Marks and Spencers or get off a train in a hurry because they'd seen a familiar face. And it could be quite upsetting – although she was slightly surprised that it had shaken Lucas so badly.

"What did you tell him?" she asked.

"Usual cover story," Lucas answered. They all had them - plausible enough to be convincing, mundane enough not to arouse too much interest. "Insurance in the City."

She smiled. "That must have made him lose interest pretty quickly."

He smiled back. "Yeah. He'd been suggesting we go for a drink, but that seemed to put him right off." He resumed eating. "It was just the sudden … intrusion, I suppose. You think you're safe, and then - " he shrugged. "Sorry. You must have thought I'd flipped. It was so long ago. My first few years in Five … before Russia - sometimes seem like a dream. Going back _that_ far … it's like – well, like another life."

"Don't worry. We've all been there," Ros said. She put her knife and fork down. "Lucas, that was delicious, but I don't think I could eat another mouthful."

He frowned. "If I were to turn you sideways behind a lamp-post, Ros, you'd be invisible." When she looked heavenward, he asked: "Are you sure you're OK?" She scowled, and he raised his hands in surrender. "All right, all right, I never said it! Is there anything else you'd like?"

"A shower and to go to bed," Ros said. She tried to stifle a yawn behind her hand. After weeks in which her most strenuous physical activity had been to shuffle down the hospital corridor and back, she was beginning to wilt. "If I have to have my head turned inside out by the shrinks I'd better have a couple of early nights. If you don't mind."

"Of course not." Lucas finished his food and looked at her uncertainly. "Can you manage – you know, in the shower?"

Ros wanted to give a resounding yes, but memories of having to be helped by Claire Linehan, and almost losing her balance at least twice turned the words into a dubious 'yes, I think so'. Lucas looked embarrassed, and for a moment they both conducted a separate but simultaneous scrutiny of the tablecloth. Eventually, Lucas muttered, "Should have thought. I'll put that stool in there." He pointed. "I did get a special rubber mat for you so it won't be slippery. If you leave the bathroom door ajar I'll - er – I'll keep an ear out. Just yell. You know, if you need help. I'll bring the towels, your pyjamas and whatever."

Ros followed him out, occasionally steadying herself against the wall. She was determined that she wouldn't have to use a crutch in Thames House, so she might as well start practising now, but tiredness was making her shaky, and she was trembling slightly when she reached the bathroom. Lucas looked at her worriedly.

"I'll stay," he said apprehensively.

"I. Can. Cope," Ros said firmly. To prove it, she incautiously tried to pull her sweater over her head. "_Ow! _Oh, shit," as a bullet of pain from her shoulder tore down her arm.

"Hold it, hold it." Lucas lifted the sweater as Ros muttered a _sotto __voce _stream of curses, and eased it over her head. "All right with the rest?"

"Yeah, fine," Ros mumbled, as she quickly turned away from him. She heard him draw in a sharp breath.

"Christ, Ros, but you were lucky." His hand gently traced the almost-healed deep gashes across her back. The doctors had told her that loose, flailing cables from the ceiling had done the damage.

"Yeah." She shivered, part at his touch, part at the memories. Just a few inches from her, Andrew Lawrence had been hit by crumbling concrete debris. Such a small distance between life and death.

She felt Lucas drop a kiss on the top of her head. "I'm glad it was you." He went out.

Slowly and awkwardly, Ros showered, manoeuvred her way into her pyjamas and went to the bedroom. Lucas had turned down the duvet and when she slipped under it her feet touched a hot-water bottle. She felt an unaccustomed lump in her throat at her colleague's thoughtfulness. She wriggled the warm rubber into her arms and curled up. She was already more than half-asleep when she heard a whispered: "You okay there?"

"Mmm." She managed to force her eyes open. "Wonderful. Thanks. You … be comfortable?"

"I could sleep on a washing-line. Fussbudget. If you have … " he searched for the right words, "if you can't sleep, call me. Night."

Ros barely heard the last word, and the shadow of sleep had embraced her before she could respond to it. Cocooned in the warmth and quiet, she slept deeply, until something tugged her unwillingly to the surface. For a moment, she lay bewildered, still not fully awake and unsure where she was. There was a faint bluish light glowing beyond the half-open bedroom door, and she could vaguely hear the rustling of papers, but her eyes began to close again before she could make sense of either the light or the sound. As both slipped away with her consciousness she thought she heard a distant voice whispering urgently to her.

_He's lying, Ros. He's lying …_

_**As ever, a review would be greatly appreciated!**  
><em>


	4. Chapter 4

_CHAPTER FOUR_

_**JUST FOR INFO: KR stands for Kontra-Razvyedka (counter-intelligence) in Russian.**_

"Hey, sleepyhead!" Ros murmured a drowsy protest as she felt Lucas's fingers brush her hair off her face, and tried to burrow deeper into the pillow. "Come on." His voice was cajoling. "I can't wait on you all morning."

"Go away," Ros mumbled grumpily.

"OK." The scent of freshly brewed coffee reached her nostrils. "I'll take this with me, then."

"Urgh … no." Ros eased the duvet down a fraction, slid her hand out and groped with her eyes still shut in the direction of the smell. She heard Lucas chuckle.

"Catnap or caffeine, Ros. Either. Or."

"You rotten bully." Reluctantly, Ros opened her eyes and hauled herself into a semi-reclining position. "Just because you're section chief."

He grinned. "Did you sleep all right?"

"Mm-hmm." Ros rubbed her eyes and finally managed to focus on him. "What time is it?"

"Eight-thirty." Lucas carefully lowered the tray he was carrying onto her lap. It bore not only the coffee but a glass of orange juice and a heap of buttered toast as well. Ros blinked.

"I never eat at breakfast."

"You do now," Lucas said firmly. "According to the doctors you're about seven pounds underweight. And Harry says he wants to see you with a double chin when you come back."

"In his dreams." As Ros reached for the coffee pot, Lucas grasped her wrist. His fingers reached and wrapped over his thumb as he held it up.

"All right. I'll settle for not being able to do this when you're reinstated, then."

"Lucas," she said warningly, "you're - "

"Fussing, I know. I get to do that once a day too; it's only fair."

"And I'm - "

"Fine," they both said in chorus. Lucas stood up and stretched enormously; Ros watched the gallery of tattoos on his upper body squirm and writhe with the movement. "I need to get ready." He smiled, and left the room. Ros poured herself a cup of coffee and sipped it almost reverentially, letting the steam rise into her face and savouring the taste on her tongue. Sleep deprivation she could handle; deny her morning caffeine fix and she'd probably agree to sell enriched uranium to the North Koreans by lunchtime.

She was just draining her second cup when she heard a phone ringing. Seconds later, Lucas, pulling on his coat as he did so, skidded into the room.

"Red-flash, Ros. I have to run. There's some soup in the fridge – shop-bought, not mine, so you're safe to eat it. There's butter there somewhere, and the bread's still fresh. And some of the salad left from last night. I'll cook something when I get in. Help yourself to a book or the stereo." He hesitated. "I'll try and drop in later … or I'll ring. You will be okay, won't you? Don't try and do anything daft; Harry'll kill me. No getting down on your hands and knees or – or using the bath … climbing on chairs or - " He floundered to a halt as Ros fixed him with a wordless but eloquent stare. "No. No, of course you – er – of course – um – right. Right," when Ros merely raised an eyebrow and pointed a finger wordlessly in the direction of the front door. "See you later, then."

She heard the front door slam and then his feet clattering quickly down the steps as she reached for a slice of toast. The distant hum of traffic on the main road only nibbled at the edges of the silence. Ros stared unseeingly across the room, wondering what prospective disaster lay behind the red-flash call and wishing she could have gone with Lucas to respond to it. She stretched out a hand for the TV remote on the bedside table, deliberately ignored an unwelcome twinge of pain in her back, and switched on the morning news broadcast. Most of the domestic news was heavy on economic gloom, but there was nothing that shed any light. She switched the channel impatiently to BBC World just in time to catch an item reporting the bombing of a hotel in the Middle East. Ros felt herself break out in a cold sweat at the sound of the wails from emergency sirens and hysterical passers-by. The camera helpfully zoomed in on the shattered shell of the building and the smouldering heaps of rubble. Her hands were shaking, and it was a few seconds before she could force them to fumble for the off button on the remote.

"That's enough." The whisper was harsh, and Ros thumped her thigh angrily with a clenched fist to reinforce the message. "_Enough._" She made herself focus on her watch and forced herself to breathe slowly and deeply for sixty full seconds until her rapidly quickening heartbeat had returned to something like normal. _Damn _the bloody tricks that the mind can play when it has nothing more challenging to do with itself.

_Then__ you__'__d __better __find __something,__ Myers. _Her stretching exercises would do, for a start. She carefully set the tray aside and eased herself out of bed. _God,__ now __my __body__'__s __joining __in __the __conspiracy __as __well._ Her limbs ached as if she had spent the night on the rack rather than in a comfortable bed, and it took her an effort to shuffle, bent like an old woman, to the wall so that she could brace herself against it and gradually, jerkily straighten up._ I must look like that bloody robot out of Star Wars__._ She walked stiffly into the living room and looked out into the garden. The sun was streaming in through the patio doors, and she paused for a moment, enjoying the brightness and the warmth of it on her face. Natural light had been on the top of her wish list along with fresh air during her weeks in the hospital. She felt a sudden surge of gratitude to Lucas North for enabling her to leave the bloody place – even if he had told Harry a little porky about what her sleeping arrangements would be.

_Right, __come__ on, __Myers._ She was just raising her arms to begin the first exercise when she stopped. _Porky__ pie__ … __lie.__ He__'__s __lying, __Ros._ She slowly lowered them again. Why had that thought been tapping so insistently in her brain as she fell asleep last night? She had forgotten it until just now. What detail had made her so certain that Lucas wasn't telling her the truth?

She screwed her eyes up with the effort to concentrate and bring the errant memory back, but her only reward was a stab of pain caused by the involuntary contraction of her shoulder muscles. _Damn__ you, __think, __Ros!_ Her brain had been so sodding _sluggish _ever since the bombing. Trying to retain information in her memory was a bit like King Canute trying to keep the water at bay by sticking his finger in the dyke; it just leaked in – or in her case, out – somewhere else. She growled in frustration and forced herself to repeat Claire Linehan's mantra: 'you'll not be hurrying nature, Rachel, one step at a time'. She loathed it, all the more so for knowing it was true.

_All __bloody __right. __One __step __at__ a __time._ Get the blood circulating and the oxygen into her brain. Maybe then it would stop playing tricks on her. She took in as full a lungful of air and patience as she could manage, and started her exercise routine.

Ros spent the next three days exercising, reading, doing a lot more sleeping than she felt she should need, and fretting over how quickly she became tired when doing what she would previously have described as mundane tasks – the few that Lucas would actually allow her to do. He refused point-blank to let her go outside on her own – Harry's instructions, he said - so she pestered him until he finally agreed to accompany her on a walk around the block. He insisted that she take her crutch, and they had a brief but fiery spat on the doorstep about it until he pointed out that they weren't exactly adhering to MI-5's 'low-profile' code stipulating that all officers should refrain, at all times, from drawing attention to themselves in public. Ros blew a raspberry at that, but she was grateful to him when she returned with her chest burning, her leg aching, and shivering with cold despite the warmth of the sun. Lucas pretended not to notice the tears of frustration in her eyes and poured them both a glass of wine.

"Come on, Ros," he said gently. "Don't be so hard on yourself. That's the first time you've walked that far outside since the bombing. Don't forget what you went through. Not even you can shrug off an experience like that and go back to business as usual. You'll get there."

"Don't _you_ start patronising me!" she snarled. "Isn't it enough that I'm going to have that bloody shrink tomorrow rooting through my brain like a fox through a rubbish bin?" The thought had been preying on her mind all day.

"I do understand," he said patiently. "I hate the probing just as much as you do." He gave a quick smile. "You should know; you debriefed me when I came back."

"That's different," Ros said defensively.

Lucas gazed thoughtfully at his wine. "Not really. I was like you, desperate to get back to work, scared they wouldn't take me back, wouldn't accept that Harry was right and that I was damaged and needed to talk things out first."

"I didn't say I was scared!" Ros flared furiously.

"Some things don't need to be put into words," he said, quietly.

Ros subsided, hating him for having hit the bullseye with such casual accuracy. She shrank back when he tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear.

"It's just time, Ros. You'll be all right." He gave a teasing wink. "I bet Dr Murray's more worried about your appointment tomorrow than you are. Rumour has it he takes sick leave every time your annual psych assessment comes round."

Despite herself, Ros smiled. She knew he was trying to raise her spirits, and she was touched that he cared enough to make the effort. "Don't believe everything you hear." She paused. "He does no such thing. Just takes his annual ski-ing holiday."

"You had your most recent assessment in May," Lucas pointed out.

"It was a very long winter in Austria last year," she said, deadpan. Lucas threw his head back and laughed.

"That's more like it, the Ros we all know and love." His face darkened in annoyance as his mobile rang. He snatched it from his belt.

"Lucas North. Yes – oh." For a fleeting second Ros saw his expression change, but it turned again, this time to concentration, so swiftly that she wasn't immediately sure of what she'd seen. He got up, and mouthed a 'sorry' at her and headed out of the room. His voice was barely above a murmur, but Ros, who had the ears of a lynx, bombing notwithstanding, caught the words '_yes,__ I__'__m __alone, __it__'__s __all __right. __Are __you __at __work? _as he crossed the hall to the kitchen.

Ros closed her eyes and sat very still, trying to identify what she had just seen. It had only been for an instant. He had smiled in pleasure, yes, but there had been something strangely wistful about it … She saw it again in her mind's eye. Something secretive … yearning, that was it. She opened her eyes again. She could still see the bulk of his silhouette in the darkened kitchen. _I__'__m __alone. __It__'__s __all __right._He wouldn't address anyone on the Grid like that. Or look like that if they called him. Suddenly her every sense was on full alert. _Who __are __you __talking __to?_

When she heard him returning, she quickly schooled her face to an expression of mild interest. "Trouble?"

"Not really, but I'm going to have to pop out for a couple of hours." He sighed. "No peace for the wicked."

"Should I worry?" Ros enquired.

"Only for the lasagne." Lucas reached for his coat. "You have yours. I can always shove mine in the microwave when I get back." He downed the rest of his wine in a gulp. "Bloody nuisance."

"Sticky asset?" Ros said casually.

"Nervous. Needs constant bloody reassurance," he said irritably. "Always at the most inconvenient damn time, as well. I thought we'd have a nice relaxing evening together tonight."

"No problem," Ros said. She got to her feet and accompanied him to the door. "Not the first time, won't be the last." As he squeezed her shoulder and turned for the steps she called, "Treat her gently!"

It had been a shot in the dark, but he turned sharply, and in the light from the lamp over the door his face looked tense and suddenly hard. "Her?"

Ros summoned up the flirtatious smile she had used on many a honey trap operation over the years. "Well, I'm assuming it's a beautiful blonde you're off to charm. If it's a Russian KR officer with acne and a beer gut, then I'll make sure you get a double portion of lasagne as a reward." She waved and closed the door before he could answer.

She served herself up some food and ate it in the kitchen, so deep in thought that the last few mouthfuls were cold before she got to them. Part of her wanted to call Harry Pearce and share her unease, but Ros knew that she had nothing specific to tell him except suspicions that she couldn't justify that Lucas was concealing something from her. She wasn't even sure what. For the rest … bumping into an old friend was unfortunate, but not a breach of the Official Secrets Act. She could be investing his fleeting smile tonight with non-existent significance. Her own longing to be back on the job could simply be conjuring suspicious incidents out of thin air. She was jumpy at the prospect of seeing the bloody shrink in the morning, and she'd admitted to herself that her memory was playing her false. Lucas had been kind, attentive, patient with her … his usual self, most of the time. And yet …. and yet.

She washed up the plate and glasses and made herself a glass of lemon tea. Her mobile had been destroyed in the bombing, and if she called Harry she would have to do it on Lucas's phone. There was, of course, no reason why she _shouldn__'__t_ ring him if she wanted to, but she didn't want Lucas to know that she had.

_You__'__re__ being __ridiculous, __Ros._ She set the glass down with an impatient thump and a sharp crack told her she'd broken it. Angrily, she mopped up the tea, wrapped the shards in some kitchen paper and buried them deep in the bin as if she could bury her foolish imaginings in there with them. She was off-balance herself tonight. That idiotic walk – _another __stupid __demonstration __of __pride __you __could __have__ done __without, __Myers _– had tired her, and she needed to be alert tomorrow. She switched the lights off and headed for the bedroom.

She slept restlessly, woken periodically by a feeling of apprehension about the imminent therapy session and once by what she thought was the click of the front door closing and the dull clunk of the security bolts being slotted home. She drowsily glimpsed light seeping through a gap in the curtains as she drifted back to sleep. When she woke again, unsure of how much later it was, she realised that she needed to use the toilet. _Sod__ it._

She could hear Lucas in the shower as she wandered into the living room to check the time afterwards. Just before seven-thirty. Not worth going back to bed; she could take over coffee duty this morning. She turned towards the door and saw Lucas's sleeping-bag and pillows heaped haphazardly on the armchair. Ros froze. She had left them there herself last night. Lucas always piled them, perfectly folded, on the very end of the sofa. When she had teased him for his fastidiousness, he had explained only half-jokingly that that was how prisoners in Russia were ordered to do it, and that after eight years he still lived in fear of a spell in the punishment cells if he didn't. He would _never_ have left them like that. She remembered hearing the door close. It had already been light. Yet Lucas had expected to be away for 'a couple of hours'. _Did __you __come __home __at __all __last __night?_

She silently closed her bedroom door and was waiting in the kitchen cradling a glass of water when he emerged from the bathroom, wearing a towel and still unshaven.

"Morning." She made it sound casual, and embroidered it with a yawn for good measure, but she registered the startled expression on his face. And this time, unmistakably, there had been a visible trace of fear in his eyes before he could control it.

"Hey, you're up early!" His eyes slid to her bedroom door and Ros read his unspoken thoughts. _Did__ she __hear __me __come __in?_

"I woke up with a headache." She held up the glass of water. "Took a couple of aspirin."

"You're getting worried about this morning." Now his expression was sympathetic, genuinely so, she thought. He kissed the top of her head as he moved to make the coffee. "The anticipation's always the worst, Ros. Like the dentist. I didn't wake you when I came in, did I? I tried to be quiet. I didn't get back till around midnight. Bloody woman."

Ros felt her stomach lurch. _Liar.__ It__'__s __not __light __at __midnight._ She skirted around around the trap. "No, I never heard you."

"That's good." He handed her a cup of coffee and leaned casually against the edge of the sink, drinking his own. "Well, since we're both up, how about getting an earlier start? You could pop up to the Grid to see Harry before you go to your session. He'd love to check that I'm taking proper care of you. I don't think he trusts me."

_He__'__s __not __the __only __one,_ Ros thought. Suddenly a dreadful sadness filled her at that admission, but she smiled at the comment. She knew she had a better poker face than Lucas North.

"Yeah. Yeah, it – it would be good to see him." She looked up at him. "As long as you come with me. It – I feel a bit strange, going back. You know, after … everything. And I did leave with you the last time I was there."

"Course." He picked an apple from the bowl of fruit on the worktop and pulled a face. "Ugh. Gone bad."

_Have__ you?_ The thought was painful. _Don__'__t__ jump __to __conclusions__._ She and Lucas had worked closely together for two years, and while she had sometimes questioned his judgement, Ros had never doubted his loyalty. She had almost considered him a friend. She finished her coffee. "I'm not hungry anyway. Not this morning. _After_ I've been shrunk, maybe. You're right, let's get going. I think I'll feel better once I get moving. And I would like to chat to Harry."

She stumbled slightly as she got up. Instantly, Lucas was there with his arm round her waist, steadying her. "All right?"

"Yes." She saw the inked double row of chains around his wrist. He had once told her that it was the badge of a prisoner sentenced to life. He had never expected to leave that prison. _What __price __might __he __have __paid __for __his __release?_

She looked up into his face. He was a clear head taller than she was.

"Really?" There was both concern and real affection in his eyes. No guile, no pretence.

"Really." She produced a mocking smile. "I have to save the '_I__'__m __fine__' _until _after_ the session, Lucas."

He laughed, stooped and kissed her gently. _Lucas__ … __Judas._ Involuntarily, Ros shivered.

"You will be." He released her and turned for the kitchen door. "Let's get this show on the road."

_**I fear the next chapter might be rather a long time coming since I am off now for a few weeks' holiday. But the plot is ready! Thanks for reading; please review!**_


	5. Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

Ros sat without speaking on the drive to Thames House, trying to control the cramps in her stomach. She wouldn't use the word 'butterflies' even to herself; it was an admission that the discomfort was caused by fear, and she refused to acknowledge that. After one or two glances at her, Lucas switched on Radio 3 and sensibly allowed Handel to fill the silence rather than trying to do it himself. As they were waiting at traffic lights to turn on to Millbank he handed Ros a plastic ID card. Hers had been destroyed; she still had scar tissue near where it had been clipped and where the plastic had melted. "Harry had a new one issued for you."

Ros accepted it and gazed at her own face looking severely back at her. She wished she felt a fraction of the self-assurance that the woman on the card conveyed. Her stomach tightened again as Lucas eased down the slope leading to the underground garage. He slid down the window, and both of them handed their ID over. The elderly guard stooped to take a closer look at them.

"Well, bless my soul! It really _is_ you, Miss Myers! It's good to see you, welcome back! We've missed your dreadful parking around here."

Lucas hastily muffled a snort of laughter. The only examination that Ros hadn't passed with flying colours was her driving test; it had taken two attempts. The men who ran the MI-5 car pool had standing orders to issue her only with cars that they didn't mind being damaged. She shot him a look, managed a smile to the guard, and clutched the card tightly to ease her tension until Lucas had parked – neatly, completely parallel, and at the first attempt, she noted sourly. _Zadok__ The __Priest__'__s_ triumphant peal came to an abrupt end, and the echoing silence of the garage seeped into the car.

" I _hate_ fuss," Ros said at last, through gritted teeth.

"Well, I had the Time-Turner effect the other day," Lucas said sympathetically. "Maybe what you need now is an Invisibility Cloak."

"Damn it," Ros said, sardonically. "Left it on the hook in the hall."

The sarcasm would have been more convincing if her voice hadn't been quivering, she thought in disgust as they got out of the car. Lucas reached in and took her crutch from the back seat, but the instant he met her eyes he put it back again without a word. When they emerged in the hall, he headed for the lifts, but Ros shook her head stubbornly, and turned towards the stairs. The sweeping marble steps looked both longer and steeper than she remembered, but without hesitation she grasped the banister and started up. Lucas, she noted gratefully, made no attempt to help or support her, merely kept pace with her as she slowly made her way up.

"_Molodyets,_" he said quietly when they reached the first floor.

"_S__ – __spasibo.__" _ She was short of breath and the word came out with difficulty, but she wouldn't let herself stand still for more than the time it took her to fill her aching lungs. When they reached the doors that led into the Grid, Lucas gave her hand a quick squeeze, swiped his ID card through the reader and led the way in.

As she emerged from the pods, Ros stopped for a moment and gazed out across the familiar array of desks, glass partitions and computer screens. As ever, the Grid was buzzing with the familiar, reassuring, steady hum of brisk conversation and hard-working computer equipment. _I__ thought __I__'__d __never __see __this __place __again._She swallowed hard.

"Welcome home, Boss," Lucas said softly into her ear.

Ros was about to reply when a piercing whoop came from the far side of the Grid. All around the room, heads snapped up and swung around.

"Hey, it's Ros!" It was young Tariq Masood, his face split by an enormous grin.

"The Boss is back!"

Ros looked up in panic at Lucas, but before he could say a word, the young computer technician started clapping. Slowly, as other staffers recognised her, the applause pattered around the room, swollen by a ragged chorus of cheers and whistles.

"Lucas, I can't - " Ros hissed, but Lucas merely shook his head.

"To paraphrase the leader of the Free World, yes, you can." He pointed towards the figure of Harry Pearce emerging from his office, drawn by the now noisy storm of applause. "Besides, someone's waiting for you."

"I _can__'__t_," Ros repeated, but he just gave her a gentle nudge and walked away to his desk.

Harry was applauding too, but as Ros, her head lowered and her face burning with embarrassment, reached him, he stopped and shook her hand instead.

"Should have practised your royal wave, Rosalind," he murmured. "They've been waiting a long time for this." He raised both hands and his voice. "All right, all right, you lot, we haven't won the bloody Test match! Back to work!" As people began to return to their stations amid a buzz of excited conversation, he led her into the conference room. "Sit down." Ros subsided with relief into a chair. Harry looked at her and laughed.

"The colour of your face could stop traffic, Ros." He patted her shoulder. "Want a coffee?" When she nodded, he said, "How's life at Casa North?"

For a second Ros almost gave him an honest answer. She bit it back. She couldn't, and _wouldn__'__t_ tell him of her worries about Lucas until she was sure that they weren't imaginary.

"Fine. He's been really good." She looked through the glass partition into the Grid. Lucas was examining some papers being offered to him by a plump young blonde woman she didn't recognise. She _did_recognise the flirtatious expression on her face, not that it was having much effect on Lucas. He was scrutinising the papers, a frown of concentration pleating his forehead. As she watched, he beckoned over a gangly young man with a very short crew cut and started talking to him, obviously issuing instructions.

"Our newcomers," Harry said. "What time's your session?"

Ros looked at her watch. "In half an hour."

"Good," Harry said briskly. "You've got time to meet them." He picked up the phone and told Lucas to join them.

Ros sipped her coffee thankfully. "I – I didn't see Ruth." She was instantly angry with herself for the hesitant way in which the words came out. She knew Ruth had been to the hospital with Harry, but Ros never quite felt entirely at ease with the analyst. She had never forgotten her own part in driving Ruth into exile, and she still believed, despite Harry's assurances to the contrary, that Ruth blamed her for the death of Jo Portman. Ros couldn't hold that against her – she blamed herself - but none of it made for an entirely comfortable relationship.

"She went down to Registry," Harry answered. "She'll be back in a few minutes." He looked round as Lucas slid back the conference room door and came in, followed by the two young officers Ros had seen him speaking to. "Ros, these are our two new team members. Beth Bailey," Harry indicated the young woman, "and this is Dmitri Levendis. Beth, Dmitri, this is our previous section chief - "

"Rosalind Myers." Dmitri Levendis extended his hand to Ros. "You're a legend. It's an honour, ma'am."

For a second Ros flashed back to the only other time she could remember when someone had referred to her in those terms. She managed an awkward '_thank__ you__'_, shook his hand and then that of Beth Bailey, whose smile, Ros noticed, didn't reach her eyes. She looked confident – _over_confident- and, Ros noted with a flash of irritation, looked at her with something close to pity. She was saved from making any indelicate comments by the arrival of Ruth Evershed, who rushed in, let out a squeal when she saw Ros, and ran to hug her. Ros tried, and failed, to keep back a gasp at the pressure on some of her scars, but when Ruth babbled a contrite apology, she stopped her. "It's all right, Ruth, I'm fine, honestly. I'm fine."

"Twice," Lucas murmured. "Er … Ros? Doctor Murray? We'd better go." He tapped his watch, and Ros felt her stomach lurch.

"Oh." She got to her feet, but as they moved towards the door, Lucas's mobile rang. He glanced at the screen, gestured a hesitant '_two __minutes__' _and slipped out into the corridor.

"I'll go down with you," Ruth offered. Before Ros, startled, could object, she led the way towards the pods. She smiled, but seemed disinclined to speak. Since Ros's stock of small talk was so limited as to be almost non-existent at the best of times, a strained silence prevailed until Ruth awkwardly cleared her throat as they were walking down the basement corridor. She said hesitantly, "Ros … does Lucas seem all right to you?"

Ros tensed. "How do you mean - all right?"

"I'm not sure." Ruth licked her lips. "He seems a bit off. He's been tense lately. Snapping at people … vague, too. Almost – well, I – I suppose you could – you could say almost evasive. He's gone off comms a couple of times without explanation recently, as well."

"That's sometimes necessary in the field, Ruth," Ros said, dryly. "It's not prohibited either."

"No, no. No, of course not." Ruth gulped audibly. "It's just that – you see him off the Grid, too. At home. I – I – I wondered if you'd noticed anything … unusual. Odd. In his behaviour."

"No." Ros kept her face impassive. "Have you talked to Harry about it?"

Ruth shook her head. "No, I can't, really. I don't really know what I mean. Lucas is very popular with the other officers and Harry seems happy with him. It's just – just a feeling I have that something's … not - not right."

They stopped outside the office door marked '_David__ Murray: __Psychologist.__' _Ros gestured ironically at it. "I don't think I'm really the best person to advise you right now, Ruth."

The analyst half-smiled, but she still looked troubled. "No. No. It – I'm probably imagining things." She made a visible effort. "Maybe your shoes were just a bit big for him to step into. I think he felt Harry didn't trust him as much as he had you. He was very insistent that he give him Grade A clearance and full autonomy during operations before he'd accept the position, even temporarily."

Ros shrugged casually, even as her skin prickled in an instinctive warning reaction that she recognised. _She_ had been Section Chief for a full three months before Harry had given her Grade A clearance. Adam - the same. Why had Lucas needed to demand that it be granted to him instantly? And why had Harry given it to him without querying it?

"Well, that's understandable. No-one wants to try and do the job with one hand tied behind their back." As she said the words, she wondered why she was deliberately fudging the issue. Ruth was experienced and thorough, and she wasn't often wrong. Ros might not like her very much, but she had no reason to distrust her. But the analyst's anxiety, while increasing her own, also made her resentful on Lucas North's behalf. If she were to discuss the vagaries of his behaviour at all, she would first discuss them with him.

"Yes, I'm sure." Ruth was backing down. "I'm sure it's just that. You're a hard act to follow, Ros." She smiled. "I'd better go. Good luck!"

_I__'__m __going __to __bloody __well __need__ it,_ Ros thought as she reluctantly knocked. Thanks to Ruth her mind was in turmoil already, and she wasn't even over the threshold yet. She took a deep breath, allowed herself one final shiver of apprehension, fixed Rosalind Myers's mask of impassivity back on her face and pushed the door open.

Any intention Ros might have had of probing the oddities – she refused, for the moment, to accept that they were anything else – in Lucas's conduct was swept aside by her war of attrition with the MI-5 psychologist. She knew that David Murray's formal attestation that she was fit to return to duty would be a _sine __qua __non _for her doing so, and since she had promised Harry Pearce not to make a fuss, she did her utmost to co-operate. It wasn't the first time in her thirty-seven years that she had been told '_you__'__re __your __own __worst __enemy,__Rosalind__'_ but it _was_ the first time she hadn't sneered at the mere idea. Everything in Ros's nature that made her aloof, unemotional and self-contained militated against her being able to express her feelings openly – especially to a man who was recording every word she said and simultaneously taking notes. Instinctively, she tried to withdraw, like a hedgehog curling up defensively to ward off a jabbing stick, when he probed areas that were too painful, but with the utmost patience and compassion, the psychologist would persist until the bricks in her emotional walls finally crumbled to dust. He took her sullenness and anger placidly, and when on one occasion she uncharacteristically and unexpectedly (to her, Ros thought later, not, she suspected, to him) burst into tears, he poured not the usual institutional cup of sweet tea but a glass of brandy, and drank one with her until she had herself back under control. Ros wanted to hate him and despise the psychobabble that she had always ridiculed, but she couldn't quite bring herself to do so. Somehow, although she would go to the rack rather than admit it to anyone else, she suspected that the bloody sessions were doing her good.

Which didn't mean that they didn't come at a cost. She had seen Murray's assistant after shooting Jo Portman, and had been so uncooperative with her that the woman had refused to waste any further time with her after the second session. David Murray was obviously intending to use this opportunity to dig as far as she would allow him to reach, so as well as the bombing and the death of Andrew Lawrence, he encouraged her to revisit the young colleague's death too, and even discuss her feelings about the suicide of her mentor, Jack Colville. Those were events that Ros had buried very deep, and she wasn't surprised when her nightmares, which had tailed off since she left the hospital, came back with a vengeance. She was desperate not to let Lucas find out, and at first she succeeded in keeping them to herself. It wasn't just a question of the dreaded 'fuss' he would make if he knew; he was working unheard-of hours, something to do with CSS infiltration, was under a lot of stress himself, and in the last week, had occasionally been moody and irritable.

In the end, her cover was spectacularly blown one night just over a fortnight into her treatment. Lucas had come home late, and, after apologising that he was 'bushed', went to bed even before she did. He looked tense, exhausted, and had barely spoken a word while they ate, so Ros didn't object. She sat up in bed reading for a while and then switched her own light out and drifted off to the rhythmic sounds of his snores coming across the hall from the living room.

She jerked awake in darkness with a weight pressing down on her, and screamed in panic, flailing and writhing to free herself. Her chest felt as if someone had encased it in bands of steel, and her head was spinning from the lack of oxygen. She gave another gasping scream.

"Ros! Ros, it's me. It's Lucas, you're safe; you're OK. _Ros_," as she gave another wail, "look at me. It's all right. It's all right." A light snapped on, and the claustrophobic shadows oppressing her receded a little as she saw his face. "Try and breathe more slowly." She was panting, struggling to force air into her lungs, dizzy from the lack of it. Everything was out of focus. Lucas eased her to a sitting position. "That'll be easier. Slow it down now, it's over, it was just a dream. Look at me." He took her hands. "Breathe with me. Come on, that's it. Slow it down."

Ros gripped his hands hard, and struggled to obey, but she was wet with sweat and shaking convulsively. After a second's hesitation, Lucas wriggled onto the bed next to her and eased her into his arms. "Relax, Ros. You're safe; I've got you,' as her racing heartbeat finally began to slow. "Ssh, you're safe, I'm here. Ssh, ssh."

"Sorry," she croaked, when she could finally get the word out. "Sorry."

"No need. " His voice was brusque. "Happened to me, too." She felt him tug the tangled duvet loose and drape it over them. "Get under this, if that sweat chills, you'll get cold." Ros stiffened, and tried to pull free as unsought memories of Adam welled up. Two years gone, and the hurt from his loss was still raw enough to make her recoil from even the slightest attempt at intimacy on the part of anyone else.

"Ros, I'm not about to ravish you." There was a smile in Lucas's voice, and when she looked up, one in his eyes as well. "Just let yourself relax."

Spent and shaken, she cautiously let herself rest against him. Lucas stroked her damp hair back off her face. After a while, he asked: "What was it? The bomb?"

"Mm." She gulped. _Don__'__t __you __dare __bloody __cry._ "All of it – Lawrence … and - and Jo … Jo, at – the – at the end of that bloody corridor … waiting. Telling me it – it was time." She quickly dabbed her eyes with the corner of the duvet cover. "Stupid. Guilty conscience, that's all."

"No." He shook his head firmly. "No. Conscience rubbed raw by a brave, honest woman, more like." She felt his chest muscles tauten as he attempted to stifle a yawn.

"You're tired. Go back to bed; I'll be all right now." She made to sit up, but Lucas, equally decisively, nudged her back down.

"I'd prefer a decent washing line, but this is fine. Ros, _don__'__t __argue,__" _as she took a breath to do just that. "Close your eyes and go back to sleep. _Now._" Another enormous yawn. "That's an order. From your temporary Section Chief."

Within a few moments his breathing had deepened and it was obvious that he had taken his own advice. Ros lay quietly, staring up at the spider's web of plaster cracks on the ceiling. She had dropped into the Grid a couple more times, but she hadn't spoken to Ruth again, and Harry's concern about Lucas seemed to have dissipated, too. Ros hadn't caught him out in any more lies, and his recent snappiness and tension could easily be down to fatigue. It was hard for her to give credence to its being anything more sinister; she couldn't reconcile the possibility with the consideration he showed her every day. Ros reflected wryly that had she just been an adoring girlfriend she would probably have accepted his meeting with an 'old friend' as being just that and even accepted an explanation – however implausible - for his overnight vanishing act. It was the intelligence officer in her that couldn't, and try as she might, Ros couldn't subdue her enough to mop up those few corrosive little droplets of mistrust.

She slid carefully from his arms and eased herself a little further across the bed. As she curled up, Lucas muttered something in his sleep. Ros turned back.

'_Maya__ … __I__'__ve__ fixed__ it.__We __can __be __together. __Maya__ …'_

Ros lay rigid, not daring to move until the muttering stopped and he sank back again into a deeper sleep. Suddenly her mind was rational, alert, and icily calm. _Another __little __droplet._ The encounter on the Embankment, the anxious 'asset' whom it took all night to reassure, the insistence on Grade A clearance. Now this.

_Fixed what? And who the bloody hell is Maya?_

_**This story and its author are now going on a month's holiday. Thank you so much for all your kind reviews! Another one would make a lovely early Christmas present! :)  
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	6. Chapter 6

CHAPTER SIX

When Ros got up the following morning, there was no sign of Lucas. A single mug containing a few dregs of cold coffee stood on the kitchen table, and a scribbled note lay next to it. _Busy __day.__ See __you __later. __L. _She moved towards the kettle, then changed her mind, drew a glass of water from the tap and took it into the living room. Rain was streaking down the windows, but a weak sun made the drops glitter like a child's glass beads. Ros perched on the edge of the sofa, but almost instantly stood up again and paced restlessly to the window and back again. She knew the signs. Her brother used to tease her that there must be a direct connection between the part of her brain that produced worry, and her feet. Ros's response to being emotionally unsettled had always been to walk, whether that meant pacing a room in thought, walking the streets in a temper after an argument, or taking long, solitary walks in the countryside to relax. Normal people, Philip had said wryly, talk. Ros's eloquence, which was never likely to make her a modern-day Cicero, shrivelled away to nothing and any energy that might have gone into speech seemed to transfer to her legs instead.

_Stop __wool-gathering._The last thing she needed was to get side-tracked by sentimentality. The bedrock of the Ros Myers legend was that she and sentimentality – especially about other people - didn't occupy the same planet. Ros knew better; she had got into hot water before by making decisions based on emotional attachment to people rather than on reason and common sense. Her idiotic involvement with her father's coup was a case in point. She had joined the Yalta conspiracy because of her bitter anger against the Americans for their part in the disappearance and death of Zafar Younis. Now she had a dreadful and intensifying feeling that she had made a similar mistake for the last few weeks with Lucas North. She had allowed her gratitude for his kindness and affection to cloud her judgement; become unwilling to acknowledge the signals that should have made it obvious, especially to a senior intelligence officer of her experience, that _something_ – as yet unspecified - was amiss with her colleague.

_I __need __to __tell __someone._ The obvious person was Harry Pearce. He had known Lucas for longer than she had - longer than anyone - but that was part of what made Ros hesitate. She knew Harry felt guilty about Lucas - about having sent him to Moscow, and about his inability over eight long years to get him released. As she had done, he was likely to give Lucas the benefit of any doubt. The fact that she had been having counselling might weaken the credibility of anything she said. What she needed was someone else who could look at the situation dispassionately and consider the unadorned facts.

Her mouth twisted in an ironic grimace as she returned to the bedroom to find her mobile phone. This was going to mean swallowing so much of her pride that she'd probably have indigestion for the rest of the week. But it had to be done.

"Ruth? Don't say my name. It's Ros."

"Yes." Just that, in a tone of slight surprise. Ros breathed again. _First __hurdle__ over._

"I need to talk to you. About - " she hesitated. "What we spoke about when I started my sessions."

"Oh, that's good! How about lunch?" Grudgingly, she had to admit that Ruth was carrying this off well, better than she had expected.

"Fine. Could you meet me where I was staying before? I have to pay a visit there this afternoon." She was scheduled to see Claire Linehan at St Thomas's at two for a final check-up.

"Fine," Ruth agreed. "How about twelve-thirty? That way I won't need to tell the boss."

_Good __girl_, Ros thought. They agreed to meet in the cafeteria, and Ros hung up.

The cafeteria was crowded and noisy when she arrived, and Ros flinched at the press and surge of impatient people. She didn't feel like eating, but she knew Ruth would disapprove if she didn't, so she bought a slice of apple tart – the only thing that looked borderline edible – and made her way to where she had spotted her, sitting at a single table squashed next to the kitchen door. The analyst, whose head was buried in a copy of _The__ Iliad_, looked up and smiled, but her eyes were watchful.

"Rachel."

"Eliza. Good of you to come … cousin." Ros sat down and distastefully brushed a scattering of crumbs off the grubby tabletop.

"I thought it would be good to have a chat about Liam," Ruth said carefully. Both of them were keeping their voices low, although the screech and roar of conversation all around them was, Ros thought, the best guarantee that they wouldn't be overheard.

"Yes." Ros started to eat. "Tell me how he's been."

"Two things," Ruth said even more quietly, 'this last week. Did he tell you about the CSS operation? That asset in the embassy that Beth was trying to turn?"

"He mentioned it," Ros murmured, scanning the faces around them as she did so.

"His report had discrepancies," Ruth continued. "They were providing cover for Beth, but he left, said he'd tracked a possible tail to Queensway. He couldn't have done; the Central Line was suspended on Tuesday afternoon. I asked Tariq to check his phone, but he didn't seem worried, said it was probably a technical glitch."

Ros raised her eyebrows. "And?"

Ruth took a deep breath. "Do you know Stephen Owens?"

She shook her head. "Not personally. Heard the name. Section A, isn't he?"

"Yes. He's been arrested. Made an unauthorised withdrawal from one of their accounts. He's a financial whizzkid; that's why he was recruited. The thing is - " Ruth gulped. "The thing is, I – I saw Lucas – Liam - coming out of the restricted-access data base. At about the same time that they say Owens made the withdrawal. Owens denies everything, but it was his codes that were used and I … Liam had no reason to be there." She was flushed, squirming as if she expected Ros to shoot her theories down in flames at any second. "You know he has an eidetic memory." Ros nodded. "I can't prove it but I – there was something about him. When I called him, in the corridor. He wasn't nervous or anything, it was the opposite, really, he – he was calm. Relaxed. _Too _relaxed. It – it wasn't natural. Like a well-rehearsed actor." She paused, and stared down at the paper napkin that she had been systematically tearing into shreds. "I don't know what he was doing, what he was looking for in there, but I think – I think he used that boy. Somehow memorised his codes and – and set him up to take the rap so that if Owens – if he suspected … nobody would believe him."

Ros put her fork down and pushed the uneaten half of her apple tart towards the other woman with an enquiring expression. Ruth shook her head. Ros cupped her hands around the Styrofoam coffee cup. The cafeteria was, inevitably, stuffy and over-heated, but she had become cold as she listened to Ruth's story. For a moment she sipped in silence. Then she met Ruth's anxious eyes.

"The day he came to pick me up at the hospital." She shrugged, and told the analyst about how shaken and alarmed Lucas had seemed about having bumped into an old friend. "I know it happens. It's happened to me. But something's been nagging me about it. I only remembered it the other day, during one of my sessions, when Murray asked me someone's name. Lucas told me this guy was a friend from way back, even mentioned his voice. He had a memorable voice, that's what he said. But he never once said what his name was. Just 'an old friend'. It seemed odd. Even that …" Ros stopped, and stirred her coffee to give herself a minute. The deeper she went into this, the harder it was becoming to actually give voice to her unease. It felt like a betrayal of Lucas. "Even that could have been nothing, I suppose. But then there was the phone call."

She described Lucas's reaction to the phone call from his 'asset', his failure to return that night and her own suspicions that the call hadn't come from an asset at all. Ruth was looking unhappier by the second.

"You don't _know _that it didn't," she ventured, tentatively.

_I__'__ve__ been __telling __myself __that __for __days._Ros finished her coffee. "Has he ever spoken to you or anyone else about a woman called Maya? Filled out an S24 form?"

"Maya?" Ruth shook her head. "Not as far as I know. Why?"

Ros checked her watch. "Walk me up to the physio unit and I'll tell you."

Ruth listened in silence to her recital until they stopped outside the scuffed and peeling doors leading to the physiotherapists' domain.

"It could just be coincidence, Ros. Someone he knew years ago." Now that there were fewer people around both had dropped their aliases. "There needn't necessarily be some connection between all of this."

Ros felt a groundswell of impatience. "Ruth, come on, you're an intelligence analyst. If you really thought that, you wouldn't have asked me if I'd noticed anything about his behaviour in the first place, and you wouldn't have mentioned what you've told me today at all. Would you? In our line of work _coincidence_ is up there with Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy." Ruth flushed at her tone, but to Ros's surprise, fired back.

"That goes for you too, Ros. Shouldn't you have reported this to Harry? Or even to Section X, if you feel that strongly."

Ros almost snapped a biting riposte, but was saved by a nurse who bustled out through the swing doors, a timely reminder that they were still in a public place. It took a moment before she could meet Ruth's eyes, and a fraction longer before she could speak.

"I have to be sure. I reported someone before. I … I have to know I'm right this time."

There was a brief silence, redolent of long-held resentment, unspoken repentance and possibly, Ros thought, mutual regret. Finally, Ruth said quietly:

"Yes. So what do you think we should do?"

_I__ wish __I __knew._ Ros lifted her chin. "Give me forty-eight hours to think it through. Then I'll brief Harry."

Ruth nodded slowly. "Ros … if something _is_ wrong … if Lucas has – if he –" she stopped, and her hands twisted together anxiously. "Being with him – if he suspects that – that _you_ suspect …" in a sudden rush she finally blurted it out. "You could be in danger."

"I'll be fine." Ros made it brusque, a flat statement not open to argument. "Do we agree? Not a word to anyone for forty-eight hours?"

Ruth was gnawing at her bottom lip, but she nodded. "We – you – couldn't talk to Harry before that anyway, Ros." She glanced around and lowered her voice to a whisper. "We're installing the new data protection system tomorrow. _Cybershell__ -_ the Americans' _wunderkind._They're sending their top specialist to set it up; the preparations are already under way. The Grid's practically on a war footing, and Harry's warned we'll be in virtual lockdown for the last few hours." She put her hand on Ros's arm. "So … be careful, Ros."

"Don't fuss," Ros snapped. "I said I'll be fine." She gave the other woman an abrupt nod and a tight smile. "Thanks." She turned without another word and headed into the unit.

Claire Linehan and her colleagues put 'Rachel' through her paces for almost an hour, assessing her reflexes, probing her muscles, making her walk repeatedly up and down a set of steps and watching her carefully as she lifted, swung and turned a small set of dumbbells. Ros had feared the concluding lung function test most of all, but the physiotherapist nodded approval of her performance.

"So Rachel, I think we can safely say you'll not be needing to enjoy the pleasure of our company any longer." Claire Linehan smiled broadly, and Ros did her best to give the pleased smile she knew the woman would expect. "Lets just sate the monster's appetite for forms and you can head for the hills." She led the way to the cubicle containing her desk and set about filling them in and signing off Rachel Marshall's file.

"By the way, saw your young friend the other day." Ros looked at her, puzzled. "Liam."

Ros's hands clenched involuntarily, and she forced herself to relax them.

"Liam was here?"

"No, no, not here." The physiotherapist reached for a date stamp and thumped it several times on the documents. "Over at St Bart's. I do a clinic there once a week. Saw him when I popped in on Tuesday afternoon. Chatting up one of the doctors he was, right turning on the old blarney from what I could see of him." She turned one of the documents to face Ros. "Just pop me a little signature here, would you, now?"

Ros was so distracted by what she had just learnt that she almost signed _R.S.__Myers._ In the nick of time she corrected herself.

"Jealous, are you?" she asked, rolling her eyes.

The Irishwoman laughed. "Of Maya Lahan? You must be joking. Miss World in a white coat. Beautiful long hair, face like an Eastern princess. Should be in Hollywood, that one, not in a hospital."

Ros laughed with her, and as soon as she could do so without betraying her haste to escape, shook hands, thanked the woman and hurried for the escalators. When she reached the street she crossed to the wall that overlooked the embankment and stood there, staring down at the water without seeing it. _Maya._ And Ruth had said that it was on Tuesday that Lucas appeared to have lied about where he had been when he had left in the middle of an operation. If he had reported either socialising with Doctor Lahan _or_ his encounter with his anonymous 'old friend' on the embankment that ran below her now, Ruth Evershed would have known about it. Ros itched to go straight to St Bartholomew's Hospital and confront the doctor, but that would be reckless. Although she had scorned Ruth's suggestion that she might be in danger, there was no need to run her head into a noose, even if she wasn't entirely sure there was one.

She turned towards the steps to the road and skirted a couple coming up; the woman was heavily pregnant, and her companion was carrying a small overnight case for her. Ros stopped dead as the memory rushed back of Lucas putting that strangely old-fashioned little case up in the very top of the kitchen cupboard. Instinctively she knew that it would shed at least _some_ light on the situation. She began to run towards the nearby taxi rank.

_So._With infinite caution Ros, standing precariously on a kitchen chair, eased the case towards her and then stepped back down to the floor. _Claire__ Linehan __would __be __proud __of __me_. She half-expected to be unable to open it, but when she flicked at the locks they snapped up at once. She lifted the lid.

_What __the __hell__ … _There was a jumble of items scattered inside, mainly photographs. Ros was acutely conscious of the fact that Lucas was as experienced and skilled an officer as she was, so she handled the photographs with great care as she sifted through them. Hardly any looked recent. Many of them showed a young woman who, from the physiotherapist's description, was almost certainly Maya Lahan. In some of them she was pictured with a younger Lucas, his hair longer and his expression more carefree, and certainly less burdened, than Ros had ever seen it. She frowned, and picked up a black and white snapshot of the two of them together. Both looked very young. Ros turned it over and read the inscription on the back. _Maya __and __me ,__April__1990._

She stirred the contents of the case again, and saw a flash of gold and maroon. A UK passport. She picked it up and flicked to the page with personal details. _Lucas__ Simon __North. __Date __of __birth __- __December__20__th__1972._Ros turned the pages. Several visa stamps … Algeria, Tunisia … Dakar. So Lucas had been in West Africa in his youth. So what?

_So__ where __did __he __get __all __this? __So __why __is __he __hiding __it? __So __why __hasn__'__t __the __Grid __ever __heard __of __Maya __Lahan?_

A sharp rattling at the front door tore into the silence and caused her to whirl round, heart racing. A confetti of takeaway food leaflets fluttered down onto the doormat. Ros blew a long, deep breath and turned back to the case. Photographs … photographs … she picked up another. This time the subject was a tall, fair-haired man, casually but expensively-dressed, lounging in a doorway. Ros squinted at the sign above and behind his head. _Casino __de __Dakar._

_I __know __that __face._ Ros felt a chill spreading through her. _I__'__ve __seen __you __before. __In __a __file __somewhere, __long __ago._ She compressed her lips, trying to retrieve the details from her memory. It must have been when she was in Six. She stared down into the case. A snapshot of the same man, sitting with Lucas at a table on a terrace; glasses of wine stood in front of both. The name wouldn't come, and neither would the exact circumstances in which she'd seen his face, but she was certain it had been in the context of an investigation.

_What __on __earth __is __the __connection __between __him __and __Lucas? __And __where __does __bloody __Maya __fit __in?_

_My__ God._ Ros groped behind her for a chair, and, still holding the photograph, sank onto it. _Is__ this __the__ '__old __friend__' __he __bumped __into __that __night? _If it were, and if he had given this case of what – memorabilia? – to Lucas, then that hadn't been a coincidental crossing of paths. The meeting had been well-prepared and intentional. And these photographs were meant to convey something. A warning? A threat? A reminder? _Exactly __how __many __worms __are __wriggling __around __in__ this __sodding __can? __And __why __the __hell __did __I __open __it?_

Her internal intelligence officer obligingly provided an immediate answer. _Because __you__'__ve __known __something __isn__'__t __right._ Even before learning of Ruth's disquiet she had been uneasy about Lucas. Now she was downright alarmed. Was he was being blackmailed? Entrapped? Both? _I__'__ve __fixed __it._ Had he _already_ become a victim … or a traitor?

She jumped violently as the telephone burst into an electronic version of the James Bond theme. _Lucas__'__s __idea __of __a __joke._ Ros had never thought it particularly funny; now she wrenched the device from its stand, half-ready to throw it rather than answer it.

"Ros, first thing - how did you get on at the hospital?" Lucas's voice was warm and concerned, but for a moment, it froze her. Quickly, she shook herself.

"Fine." She told him about being discharged with as much enthusiasm as she could.

"That's great!" She could hear the smile in his voice. "We'll celebrate." Ros shuddered at the thought of having to feign 'celebration', especially with someone as observant as Lucas, when her mind was whirling with doubt, suspicion and self-recrimination.

"What time do you think you'll be in? I'll do the cooking tonight."

He sounded regretful. "That's the second thing. The whole Grid's going into ESP in ten minutes. I won't be back before tomorrow night."

"Shit," Ros grumbled. That would be the Enhanced Security Procedure Ruth had referred to, for the installation of _Cybershell._ She managed a joke. "Pity it doesn't _really _mean Extra-Sensory Perception, then you might have known that in advance."

He laughed. "Yeah. Sorry, Ros. But we can celebrate then, OK? You'll be all right on your own?"

"Sure." Ros glanced down at the photograph she was holding. "I'll find something to do. But if you're going to make me wait, then the champagne's on you."

"You're on. Take care. 'Bye."

Ros hung up. _First__ time __I__'__ve __ever __been __grateful __to __bloody __computer __hackers._ She had something to do, all right. She had thirty-six hours during which to do her own digging. Then, when she was able to contact Harry Pearce she would have something solid and convincing to take to him.

She tucked two of the photographs into her pocket, closed the lid on Lucas North's past and returned the suitcase to the cupboard.

_**Now I'm DEFINITELY leaving. Merry Christmas!**_


	7. Chapter 7

**CHAPTER 7**

Ros's attempts to sleep foundered on the rocks of her own churning thoughts for most of the night. She got up when the first birds started to chirp with nauseating cheerfulness, breakfasted sparsely on a small bowl of muesli and two cups of black coffee, and then started on a systematic search of the flat. Lucas's meticulous tidiness made her task easier, but she still took it slowly. She needed to be thorough, but she also had to avoid leaving any visible trace of her passage. She wasn't searching the home of a target blissfully unaware of the possibility of surveillance. Lucas was trained, alert, observant, and judging by his recent attempt to set her a verbal trap, already on his guard.

Three and a half wearying hours later she sat angrily back on her heels in front of the bookcase in the living room, having completed her search by flicking through and shaking each volume in it and having opened every single CD case. All she had learnt from the latter was that Lucas seemed to have a nostalgic taste for Flower Power folk music. Ros didn't share it, but even she didn't consider it criminal. The only revelation from the bookshelves was that one whole row was crammed with volumes of poetry. Ros had spotted Blake, Milton, Byron and many collections in Russian, including Pushkin – inevitably - Akhmatova, Mandelstam and Tsvetayeva. She remembered Lucas once shrugging off her raised eyebrows at the breadth of his literary knowledge with an embarrassed smile and an offhand '_eight years' reading sabbatical'. Damn you. _A renegade officer would surely not have endured what he had in Russia for eight years. He had stayed loyal and suffered for it when he could easily have bought, lied, or traded his way out. After his return he had been pivotal in helping Section D thwart Arkady Kachimov's schemes. And other than that damned suitcase, there was nothing _she_ could see as suspect in the flat._ Was_ she over-reacting? Getting things out of proportion?

Ros eased herself back against the sofa, wrapped her arms around her knees and closed her eyes. _Don't go there, Ros._ She would _not _yield to that temptation. Her own suspicions were enough to justify her concern, even without Ruth's additional contributions. But she wasn't going to find anything more here. She couldn't examine either Lucas's safe or his computer. She didn't know the code for the safe and she wasn't skilled enough to delve into the computer and be certain that she hadn't inadvertently left an electronic calling card in the process.

_So try the other route._ She had two trails that she _could_ follow in the time available to her. Doctor 'Miss Bloody World' Lahan and the unnamed man in the photograph. Ros got up, swearing as the scar tissue on her back pulled painfully, checked Lucas's telephone directory, and rang St Bartholemew's Hospital.

"Hello, I'm calling on behalf of my mother," she said, when the operator finally answered the phone. "She has an appointment with you next week, Wednesday at ten, she _says,_ but she gets so confused – I can't even get the doctor's name out of her. Larkin, Lashin, something like that? What _department_? God, I don't know – if she can't remember the ruddy doctor's name - " She stopped and listened to the rustling of papers. "Lachman? No, I don't think so … Lahan! Yes, that's it. Oh, thank goodness. And he – oh, she, sorry … she's in the Physiotherapy department. Thank you so much."

She hung up swiftly. _Prepare for a visit, Doctor._ That was half her strategy planned out - now for the other, more urgent half. She rummaged into her handbag and extracted the picture of the man she believed to be Lucas's Anonymous Old Friend. His name still hadn't come back to her, but she had seen his face long before her transfer to Thames House. Her recollection of him _must_ come from her time in Six.

_Which gives you a problem, Myers._ She checked that she had put everything on the bookshelf back in the right place, and retreated to the kitchen to fight the headache she could feel lurking behind her right eye with a much-needed cup of coffee. She thought through her next move as she prepared it. To a great extent she was still _persona non grata _at Vauxhall Cross; a source of embarrassment for those who were still disgusted and ashamed by what Michael Collingwood and her father had done, and an object of loathing for those who still silently supported them and resented her for stopping it. She had inevitably had to work with her MI-6 colleagues over the last five years, but both she and they were too professional to let personal animosity hamper their work. However, an _unofficial_ request for help to identify the man, made without Harry's backing, would almost certainly be rebuffed.

Ros stirred her coffee, so deep in thought that she didn't notice that she had caused it to slop over the rim until dampness seeped into her sleeve. She looked down and clicked her tongue impatiently. _Loony Lindy._ She fetched a cloth from the sink and started to wipe up the puddle. Her brother Philip had sometimes taunted her with the nickname as a child when she did something silly.

_Lindy._ Suddenly, Ros stopped what she was doing. There _was_ someone at Vauxhall Cross who might help. Only one person outside her family circle had ever called her Lindy. She and Matt Craven had been in the same intake, and she had gone out with him for a while in her early days. Their paths had crossed on an IT refresher course after her transfer to MI-5. Ros had expected the contained hostility that was the most frequent reaction she encountered among MI-6 officers. She had been touched when Matt had said to her quietly after one session '_you did the right thing, Lindy. I couldn't have been that brave'._ They had dined together once and exchanged telephone numbers. Her contacts list would be in her safe at home. Ros threw the cloth back into the sink, abandoned the remains of her coffee and hurried back into the bedroom for her coat.

Despite Lucas's visits to her flat, it had an unaired, abandoned feel about it, and Ros found herself shuddering involuntarily when she closed the door behind her. It wasn't so much a feeling of someone walking _over_ her grave as one that she was coming_ back_ from it. She gritted her teeth and forced herself to take steadying deep breaths, ignoring the discomfort that the effort to do that caused. _Get on with it._ She unlocked the safe and removed her contacts book. There it was. Now she only had to pray he wasn't _en poste_ in some God-forsaken hotspot on the other side of the world.

The phone only rang twice and then a deep voice said crisply: "Yes?"

Ros felt relief flood through her. "Matt? Hi, it's Lindy Myers."

"_Lindy?_ My God!" He sounded incredulous. "The shop rumour was that you'd already booked your front-row seat up on a nice cumulo-nimbus!"

Ros couldn't help but smile. "Well, you know what Mark Twain said."

His rich baritone laugh boomed in her ear. "I'm bloody glad to hear it! You're really okay?"

"Just dented. All the bits that matter are still working." She pushed on. "Matt, could we meet? I've got a problem."

She heard the hesitation. "An official problem?"

"No," Ros said honestly. "Just a face I can't remember. My memory hasn't been too reliable since the bombing."

"Your people can't do it?" he enquired.

Ros moistened her lips. "I'm still on sick leave. Besides, it's from years ago. Our time, I'm sure."

There was a long pause. At last, Craven said, "You're not dropping me in it, are you, Lindy?"

"You mean the way I did that New Year's Eve? I wouldn't do that to you twice, Matt." She hastily moved the phone further from her ear as he burst out laughing. They had both been on duty and Ros, who even then had hated parties, had been trying to complete some work as the merriment of the office one swirled around her. In the process she had opened the door to a storage area and revealed Matt Craven locked in an embrace with the secretary to the Section head. It wouldn't have mattered so much if the man hadn't been angling to seduce her himself for weeks. Soon afterwards Matt, by mutual agreement, had moved to another section, and started going out with a contrite but amused Ros instead.

"You'd better not." She could hear the smile. "OK. Neutral territory?" When she agreed, he suggested meeting in two hours in Sloane Square, and Ros headed for the Underground again. At her insistence, Lucas had let her try to drive his car around the block once but the brief trip had caused her intense eye strain and brought on a blinding headache. Claire Linehan had advised doing as little driving as possible for a few months, and reluctantly, Ros was complying. As she sat in a District Line train being bounced and rattled through the tunnels like spare change in a jogger's wallet, her mind drifted back to Lucas and herself trying to cross London through that maze of disused tube tunnels with the Russians hot on their tail. Anger tautened her muscles. She'd had no reason to doubt his loyalty _or_ his courage then, and she hated having one now. She turned the anger into a fierce glare at a City type who was looking her over with undisguised interest, got off and headed for the street.

She didn't recognise Matt Craven, and it was only his stentorian bawl of '_Lindy!_' from the terrace of the Chelsea Brasserie that saved her from walking past altogether. When she joined him, he gave her a bear hug that, given the weight he had put on and her still fragile ribs and scar tissue, made her wince with pain. At once he released her and said worriedly, "Shit, did I hurt you?"

"No, no." The lie was automatic. Ros sat down, and the two of them ordered cappuccino. Matt still looked concerned.

"You look like you've been through the wringer," he observed.

"You always knew how to compliment a girl." Before he could persist, she added, "I'm fine, Matt. Honestly." As she spoke, she saw Lucas rolling his eyes in exasperation; he had taken to squawking like a parrot every time she used the phrase. "How's the world been treating you?"

He beamed. "I'm a married man now, Lindy. Two years ago. Remember Hannah Ryder in the Latin America section?" Ros didn't, but she nodded. "Got a sprog too. How about you?"

"Fine," Ros said again. Swiftly, she cut off what she knew his next question would be; conversations like this were a non-starter when your only real family was a handful of MI-5 officers and you were married to your job. "Boy or girl?"

"Boy. Chris." He pulled out a picture and handed it to her. Ros studied the toddler brandishing a rattle like an offensive weapon, and made herself smile. "He looks like you." She glanced up and wrinkled her nose. "More hair, though."

"Funny." Matt stirred a healthy dollop of sugar into his cup and then paused with it halfway to his mouth as Ros quietly lay her own picture on the table in front of him. She watched Matt's eyes as she did so and caught the flicker of recognition. When he looked up she was ready.

"Are you in trouble, Lindy?" His expression was deadly serious now. The bluff, contented father had gone; opposite her sat an intelligence officer.

"No. I think a friend of mine might be." She wouldn't give him any more.

He was silent for a long moment, toying with the photograph. _Making his mind up whether or not to trust me_. At last he looked up and spoke in a voice barely above a murmur.

"Vaughn Edwards." He looked back down at the photograph. "The Fixer. Remember?"

Ros nodded slowly as a small bell tinkled feebly in the depths of her memory. "Yes. Yes … I think I recall him now."

"Not easy to forget," Matt said wryly, "although God knows he threw enough bloody chaff about to confuse a regiment. Had about six aliases over the last fifteen years. Peter Cunningham, Lawrence Stevens, Bill Hamilton, Michael Riesborough – can't remember them all. You name some murky bloody situation almost anywhere on the planet, and there'll be a trace of him. Turn his hand to anything for any_body_, as long as he was paid for it. Could never be absolutely sure who the sod was working for, even when he was on our payroll. Do the job, then he'd up and vanish again. Britain's version of the Scarlet Pimpernel. The answer to an intelligence officer's prayer if he was yours … the deniable tool _par excellence. _A bloody nightmare if he was on the other side."

Ros nodded again. "That's where I remember him from. Back in the early nineties. In Africa, I think."

She was afraid she had baited the hook too crudely, but clearly Matt's initial doubts about talking to her had been dissipated.

"That's it. When our embassy was bombed in Dakar, remember? Ninety-two, I think it was. He was there at the time, doing God knows what. Name came up when we were checking British nationals in Dakar after the explosion. I wasn't involved with the actual investigation much, too junior, and it was too serious. It was taken over by the top brass pretty quickly."

Ros picked the photograph up again and recalled the other one; the one that showed Vaughn Edwards and Lucas drinking together on a sun-drenched terrace. There were palm trees and tropical vegetation in the background. And Lucas's old passport in that suitcase carried a Senegalese entry stamp.

"You talk about him in the past tense," she said. "Has there been any trace of him in recent years?"

Matt dabbed stray droplets of cream from his upper lip. "Last time he drifted across my radar was about five years ago. Someone like that, swims in muddy waters, maybe he bit off more than he could chew. Or maybe our areas of expertise," he drew inverted commas in the air, "don't overlap so much any more. Maybe we've still been using the bastard, but I don't know about it."

Ros hesitated. Theoretically, Matt should report that she had contacted him and _why _she had to Vauxhall Cross, and that was the last thing she wanted. She only had their old friendship and the sympathy she knew he felt for her because of her father's imprisonment to play on in order to ensure that he didn't.

"Could you find out for me, Matt? Just check if his name's come up more recently?"

Now his eyes were fixed intently on her. Ros kept her face clear.

"What's this about, Lindy?"

"I'm trying to help a friend. It's nothing against the rules," she answered. "And I'll make sure that anything you tell me is never traced back to you. I just need to know if he's still around. That's all."

The silence was long. Then the MI-6 man sighed heavily. "How are things with your family?"

"I don't know," Ros said steadily. "None of them will have anything to do with me." She thought she saw a second's flash of compassion in his eyes.

"Your father too? Still? No change?"

She shrugged. "I'm not holding my breath."

He reached across the table and held her hand for a second. "I'm sorry. You deserve better."

Ros shrugged again. When he still hesitated, she said, "Once I leave here this meeting never took place, Matt. I never spoke to you. You have my word."

He smiled ruefully. "Well that doesn't leave me much choice. You're the only woman I've ever met who never breaks it." He ran a hand over his face. "How much 'more recently'?"

Ros kept her face neutral and her voice non-committal. "In the last … two months? Here. In London."

"When do you need the information?"

Ros took a deep breath. "By close of business today?" She managed a smile. "And I'll buy the cappuccinos."

Matt Craven smiled back. "Spendthrift. I'll text you. Give me your mobile number."

He keyed it into his phone, and Ros paid the bill. As they rose to leave, Matt lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. "Don't disappear again for another half a decade, Lindy. Come round for dinner, meet Chris."

"I'd like that." Ros smiled as warmly as she could to make up for the lie. "Thanks, Matt. It was good to see you."

"You too." From his tone, Ros knew that he, like herself, knew that it was unlikely she would ever turn up for a dinner _en famille. _But he made no further comment. As so often happened between intelligence officers, the personal went unsaid. "I'll be in touch."

Ros went back to her flat, mulling over what she had learnt on the way. She hadn't opened a can of worms, as she'd originally thought. This was a whole bloody compost heap of them. If her guess was right – and she thought it was – that it was Vaughn Edwards who had suddenly 'bumped into' Lucas on the Embankment, then her colleague was almost certainly deep in a whole lot of trouble – nature so far unspecified. Being the kind of man he was, it wasn't likely that Vaughn had dropped by for a quick beer and a game of cards. She needed Matt Craven to confirm that the man could be in London now before she made a decision as to what to do next.

When she reached home after an exhausting journey made worse by a signal failure and an endless wait in a jam-packed train at Earl's Court, she picked up a few items of clothing to take back to Lucas's flat with her. He tended to under-estimate how important it was for a woman's morale not to wear the same outfit for days on end, even if she _was_ virtually under house arrest. It had been a long, tiring, and dispiriting day. Her leg was aching, and her chest felt uncomfortably tight, so she decided to have a hot bath here before she went back to Clapham. Suddenly, cravenly, she was reluctant to return to the home of a man she had thought was a friend and now seemed to be a complete stranger. She turned on the taps, found a clean pair of jeans and a roll-neck purple chenille sweater that had always been a favourite, and poured herself a small glass of vodka which she took into the bathroom with her.

She lay there for well over an hour, breathing in the frangipani-scented bath oil, and occasionally running in more hot water, until her breathing became easier and she could feel the stiffness in her muscles lessening. She wished the bath would have the same relaxing effect on her mental tension. _What in God's name is Lucas mixed up in? If he's in trouble, why hasn't he told me?_ More than once since meeting Lucas North she had sensed a - she searched for the word - a darkness in him, something unfathomable. He was very different from Adam, who had always been as open as the day, at least in his personal life, his emotions on display for anyone to read. Lucas, ironically, was more like her. He was a lot more sociable (_who isn't?_), and had a more engaging personality, but like the iceberg she herself was often compared to, there was a lot more to him than was immediately visible. But he was patient, kind, gentle - she could testify to that - and she had never suspected that the hidden part of him concealed anything bad. Until now.

She was just climbing reluctantly from the bath when her mobile bleeped the arrival of an incoming text message from the top of the washing machine where she had left it. Ros wrapped herself in the warmth of her bathrobe, which she had left lying on the heated towel rail, and picked it up. She heard herself gasp out loud as she read the message.

_Confirmed sighting in London within last 2 months. Using name Michael Riesborough. Believed to be living with a Dr Maya Lahan._

_**Happy to see you're still reading! Please leave a review - they're great encouragement!**  
><em>


	8. Chapter 8

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><strong>_(For any non-British readers, Tooting Broadway is a district of South London near where I used to live and that nobody in their right mind would want to liberate!) _

_**CHAPTER EIGHT**_

The message from Matt Craven turned Ros's already considerable apprehension into something closer to panic. If there had ever been any hope of her finding a rational, reassuring explanation for Lucas's behaviour she had lost it now. She knew he had been to St Bart's to see Maya Lahan. And he had known Vaughn Edwards in the past – the photographs were proof of that. Something connected the three of them, and whatever it was, Ros's professional experience and personal instincts told her that it wasn't innocent.

_I have to tell Harry._ There was no longer any doubt in her mind. She had more than enough facts to take to him. And, Ros acknowledged as she got dressed again, she needed to share them with him for her own sake, too. It wasn't a feeling she had very often, but she didn't want to carry the burden of responsibility for what she now knew alone any longer.

When she had her coat on she took out her phone and rang him. The call wouldn't go through. She tried Ruth's number and got the same 'disconnected' signal. _Shit._ The ESP restrictions must still be in place. Lucas had mentioned a possible return this evening, but Ros knew better than most that any deadline for their being lifted would be contingent on developments. Until _Cybershell_ was safely installed she was on her own.

She stood for a moment, staring unseeingly out of the window. She was ashamed of herself for it, but she was nervous at the idea of returning to Lucas's flat. Her self-indulgent wallowing in the bath had been a delaying tactic as much as anything else._ Should_ the ESP restrictions on the Grid be lifted and Lucas return home before she was able to speak to Harry, she would somehow have to conceal her mental turmoil from him. She could feel her palms becoming damp with sweat at the prospect. She had poured scorn on Ruth's suggestion that she might be in any danger, but now a feeling of trepidation was beginning to creep into her mind.

_You're being pathetic, Myers._ She spoke the words out loud as if doing so would give them greater impact. It might be equally hazardous _not _to go back. Lucas would be expecting her to be there, and there would be no credible explanation for her refusing to return. Until she could contact Harry and make her report she could best guarantee her safety by behaving normally.

_Guarantee my safety._ She raked her hand through her hair and tugged at the fine strands in a gesture of pure frustration._ God, Ros, what are you thinking? This is_ _ludicrous! _All right, so Lucas had told lies, concealed information, been … what was that bloody inane phrase – been economical with the truth. But she _couldn't_ be in danger. Not from the man who'd been so kind, soothed her fears and fussed over her like a bloody old mother hen. _Surely_?

Even as she shook her head impatiently, Ros knew that she was still foolishly trying to make allowances for him and turn a weak-willed blind eye to the unpalatable truths that were staring her in the face. Yes, Lucas had been kind, gentle; all those things. But the archives were full of assassins, traitors, con-men and sociopaths who loved their children, looked after their mothers and were kind to their pet dogs. And she wasn't sure she knew the real Lucas any longer.

_Get back there._ Ros compelled herself to walk to the front door, go through it and lock it behind her. She had got out of tighter corners than this one over the years, and deceived better men than Lucas North in the process. _And no bloody dilly-dallying with public transport, either._ She walked as briskly as her still tired body would allow to the main road, hailed a taxi and directed it to Clapham.

She paid it off about twenty-five metres from Lucas's flat and stood motionless in the shadows on the other side of the road, scrutinising the house. The windows of the flat were unlit, and as far as she could see, nothing had changed since she left. She took out her phone and made another attempt to contact the Grid. Nothing. _Right. Time to move, unless you're going to sleep on the bloody Common, Myers._

She had just started to climb the steps when there was a high-pitched shriek and two shadows bounded out from behind the bins that stood to one side of them. Ros threw herself sideways, recovered her balance, and span to face her attackers. Only then did she see the shadows of two large foxes fleeing through the gate.

Heart racing, she swore venemously under her breath. _So much for a discreet arrival_. She waited as a window two houses along was thrown open and an irritated male voice shouted: _"Bloody foxes, go and shag somewhere else!"_ and then quietly climbed the remaining steps. She stood listening at the flat door before she opened it and entered the darkened hall, gripping her handbag so that she could be ready to swing it if necessary. She gave it sixty nerve-shredding seconds of standing in the shadows, with the only sound her own shaky breathing, straining for any sense that she wasn't alone. When she was as sure as she could be that there was no-one else in the flat she switched the light on, went through each room in turn, and then threw the bolts on the door, re-set the security code and changed into her pyjamas. Suddenly a wave of sheer exhaustion swept over her as the adrenaline ebbed from her system. She tried the Grid again for what she told herself severely would be the last time for tonight. Comms still down.

_Rest._ It was very early, but that was what she needed. Ros glanced towards the front door. It was solid, equipped with the security system upon which Harry insisted, and had a spy hole drilled in it. It would keep out anyone who wasn't carrying a heavy weapon … except, of course, Lucas North, who knew the code and had the sodding keys. Despising herself for being so jittery, Ros went into the kitchen. Lucas's cooking skills meant that it was well-equipped. She removed a large chopping knife from the block, found a jar of chilli pepper and removing the lid, took both to the bedroom with her. She left the door ajar, and with her improvised weaponry lying within arm's reach and the bedside lamp on, stretched wearily out under the duvet. To her own surprise she immediately felt her eyes beginning to close.

Despite her fatigue, Ros's sleep was restless, fitful, and haunted. Twice she jerked out of a nightmare with her skin crawling in terror; the third time she opened her eyes to a feeling of melancholy so intense and overwhelming that for several minutes she lay hugging the blankets around herself like a child and weeping helplessly with no idea why she was doing it. When she woke the fourth time a bluish light was pulsing rhythmically against the wall. Ros blinked in bewilderment before realising that the screen of her mobile phone was flashing. She scrabbled for it with one hand, rubbing her eyes with the other. "Myers."

"Ros, where are you?" The voice was Harry's, and unlike her he sounded wide awake.

"At – at Lucas's." Ros struggled to get herself upright as her shoulder protested indignantly. "What - "

He cut her off. "Is he there?"

"No. No, I – I don't think so. Wait." The urgency in his voice had woken her up quicker than any Colombian coffee. She got up and looked into the living room. It was empty, and so was the kitchen. "No, no, he's not."

"Have you seen him?" Harry rapped.

"No," Ros said again. "Not since you all went off comms. I thought you were still on ESP … Harry, what _time_ is it?" she asked as she realised it was still dark outside.

"Five-thirty," Harry answered. "Ros, I want you to come in. Immediately." Ros's eyes widened. "We have – well, you'll find out."

"What's happened?" Her initial shock past, long-standing instincts were kicking in and Ros was already on her way to the bathroom.

"You'll find out," Harry repeated. "As quickly as you can. I need you."

The joy that those words would otherwise have given her was muted by the alarm underpinning them. Ros dressed as fast as she could and gave herself a quick cat's-lick. Her stomach was yowling in vociferous protest at how little she'd bothered to eat in the last twelve hours, so she snatched a stale croissant from the bread bin in the kitchen, grabbed her bag and hurried for the door.

It hadn't taken honorary membership of Mensa to know that something had to be seriously wrong and that was confirmed the instant Ros stepped through the pods. There were relatively few officers about, but those that were there were looking anxiously towards Harry Pearce's office, where she could see a phalanx of men in suits and – like everyone else – hear several raised and angry voices.

"Ros?" Unnoticed, Ruth Evershed had slipped alongside her. "Did you – did you -"

"Yes," Ros said tautly. "We were - "

"_Ros!" _Harry had emerged from the office, and was beckoning her irascibly. She murmured apologies as she weaved her way through the men forming a protective wall of tweed and pinstripes around a woman with unkempt peroxided hair, tattoos and very tight jeans. Ros winced as Harry slammed his office door shut with a crash that knocked an empty whisky glass from his desk to the floor. Vengefully, he kicked the shards into the corner. Ros braced herself.

"Problems with Cybershell?" she ventured. Harry snapped at her to sit down. "Doesn't work?"

"Oh, it'll work," he said. "If the cousins allow us to keep it after this." He took a seat himself, rubbed his hands over his face and sighed heavily. Ros tried again.

"Short night?"

The glare Harry revealed as he lowered his hands suggested that her attempt at sympathy had failed dismally.

"No. A bloody long one." He glanced over her shoulder out into the Grid. "Our American friends, having so generously agreed to share their _wunderkind_ with the junior partner in our glorious alliance, didn't actually trust any of us to install the bloody thing, so they sent their top whizz kid over to do it for us." He gestured towards the pods. "That young … er … lady - Danielle Ortiz. Fresh from some Women's Penitentiary in a county no-one's ever heard of – apparently she learnt her trade hacking into the Pentagon." Ros would have smiled at that in other circumstances. "The CIA seemed to think she could be a target for kidnapping or assassination by everyone from hostile governments to the Tooting Broadway Liberation Front. At one point they wanted a bloody military escort, closed airspace, you name it. I told them that wasn't our style and that if they let me organise the security _quietly _we'd have less trouble than if they had ten different security agencies rampaging around and tweeting it all over the Net."

"And?" Ros asked quietly.

"Lucas went to pick her up and escort her back here. The route was worked out, he had one CIA car within sight at all times – I had to allow them that much." Harry massaged the back of his neck. "Twenty minutes after he collected her he reported to Tariq that he had a car on his tail – green Toyota, he said – and he'd have to take evasive action."

Ros swallowed hard. "You lost him?"

"Temporarily. So did the CIA. You know what Lucas is like at the wheel." Ros nodded; it was a sore point that Lucas's driving was as outstanding as hers was erratic. "He shook the tail, but he brought Ortiz in over two hours behind schedule – and believe me the whole damned operation should have been timed to the second. The Americans – well, you saw."

"So," Ros hesitated, "if he got her here safely and the system's installed … what went wrong?"

"That's what I want to know," Harry grunted. "Beecher said his people didn't see any tail; they accused Lucas of inventing the whole bloody thing and endangering Cybershell. He went ballistic. Blew his stack completely."

"_Lucas_ did?" Ros grimaced. That was way out of character. Lucas had a temper, but he usually kept it firmly under control.

"Lucas. Two seconds and a brace of pistols and we could have had a duel right here. He was squaring up to Beecher, Beecher was threatening to shred the damned agreement - in the end, just to calm everybody down I had to order Lucas to go home and report back this morning."

_Which he didn't. _But Ros knew that Harry wouldn't have called her in so urgently simply because Lucas had thrown an uncharacteristic strop with the CIA. There had to be more. She waited.

Harry cleared his throat. "We managed to smooth things over once he'd gone, went into ESP and installed the system. But then Ortiz said something to Ruth that triggered them all off again. On the way here Lucas stopped off … at a Little Chef, she said, to pick up some coffee." Ros tensed. That would be acceptable on a routine surveillance operation; borderline criminal on escort duty for a top-security, high-risk asset. "Ruth thought it was odd, so she asked her where. Naturally, she didn't have a clue other than '_on the damned highway'_, but she said she saw Lucas arguing with a man in the car park. She was adamant that it was someone he knew. Said he was very … er - _'antsy'_ afterwards. Driving too fast, perspiring, wouldn't talk. And he didn't bring any coffee. She particularly remembered that."

Ros realised she had begun to clench her fists and forced herself to relax them. "Was she able to describe the man?"

"All she said," Harry answered, "was tall, blond, typical English gent. Could have been anyone."

_But it wasn't._ Ros drew her hands into her sleeves and folded her arms against a sudden chill. She was aware of Harry watching her very closely.

"Have you heard from him at all, Ros?" His voice was like steel.

"No." Her mouth was so dry that the word caught in her throat. She coughed to clear it. "No."

"I've had Tariq trying to contact him every thirty minutes since we lifted the ESP restrictions two hours ago. He isn't answering his phone and nobody seems to know why, or where he could have gone." He fixed Ros with an intent gaze. "But I think you might." He paused. "Rosalind?"

Slowly, Ros met his eyes.

"Ruth's been faffing about him for a while." He made the 'harrumphing' noise that Ros knew could signify impatience, incredulity or that Harry knew he had made a mistake. She guessed that he had been dismissive of Ruth's worries and now regretted it. "She kept telling me _you_ were 'suicidal' after Jo died. She fusses; you know she does. But now she says you agree with her." When Ros didn't answer, he leaned across the desk. "Ros, I've had the Home Office, Downing Street, the US Embassy, and the CIA going into meltdown over possible security breaches. My section chief is making unauthorised rendez-vous with persons unknown during a massively sensitive operation, losing his temper in a way that suggests to me that the accusations made against him may have some foundation and has now apparently gone on the lam for reasons I appear to be the last person in this Section to know anything about." His voice was rising steadily and the colour of his face deepening in tandem with it. "If you and Ruth know something about this that I should be aware of you will tell me. _NOW!" _The last word was a parade-ground roar that rattled the windows and made even Ros quiver in her seat. She licked her lips.

"Could you call her in? Ruth."

Stone-faced, Harry did so. Ruth looked anxiously from one to the other; she was chewing her bottom lip, and Ros thought she looked close to tears. She knew instantly that she wasn't going to get much support from there. Nonetheless, she gave the analyst an encouraging nod before she turned back to face Harry.

"Speak," he growled ominously.

She took a deep breath and, as concisely as she could, told him everything, from her initial uneasiness at Lucas's behaviour through to what she had learned from her unofficial digging. When Ruth kept her suspiciously watery eyes on her lap, Ros added what the intelligence analyst had told her and how it had reinforced her own concerns. Harry listened without interruption, but when Ros finished speaking, he asked in a dangerously quiet tone: "Why didn't you come straight to me with this?"

"Because … " Ros hesitated. " It was all circumstantial, Harry. It still is. I needed to be sure that you'd - "

"That you'd _listen_!" Ruth burst out suddenly. "I _tried_ to tell you, Harry, weeks ago, but you have such a – a - such a _blind_ spot with Lucas – so much guilt, and he knows it - "

"That's _enough!" _Harry exploded, smacking his hand down so hard on the desktop that Ruth cringed. He glared at Ros. "Do you have any _idea_ of the damage you may have caused by withholding this information, Rosalind?"

Ros held her nerve and his blazing eyes. "No more than I might have done by acting on it too fast, Harry. I've done it before." Out of the corner of her eye she saw Ruth dabbing at her cheeks with a tissue. Harry followed her look and Ros saw him make a visible effort to check himself.

"All right. All right." He looked at the notes he had been scribbling as Ros spoke. "We need to find him and we need to talk to this Lahan woman. You say St Bart's. Ruth," more gently, "would you contact the hospital, check when she's on duty? Tell Tariq to keep ringing Lucas, and get Dmitri to go round to his flat." Ruth nodded without looking at him and went out. Harry turned back to Ros. "You think the man Ortiz saw him arguing with could be this … Vaughn Edwards?"

"The description's right. Ma – my … contact … said he's been seen in London recently. Do you know him?"

Harry shook his head. "But if he's one of Six's deniables, then I wouldn't." His face worked. "Nor should Lucas – yes, _what?_" as Beth Bailey trotted, unannounced, into the office.

"Harry, this just came through on the fax." She handed him a sheet of paper. Harry frowned at it and switched on his desk lamp. "_Remember Dakar 1993?_"

"The bombing of the British embassy." Ros leaned over his shoulder. "Oh God," she whispered as part of the jigsaw fell into place. The picture would never win prizes for quality, but it clearly showed a much younger Lucas North entering the embassy building with a briefcase in one hand. Harry looked up at her.

"That's impossible." For the first time Ros could remember he sounded unnerved. "What the _hell_ is going on here?"

"Harry!" It was Ruth, brushing past Beth, who still stood in the doorway. "Maya Lahan was due on nightshift at two a.m this morning. She never came into work, and they couldn't reach her by phone. The hospital was about to report her missing."

Harry and Ros stared at each other. Then Harry shoved back his chair and got decisively to his feet. "Ruth, get her address, text it to me. Beth, I want you and Dmitri to get over to Lucas's flat. Don't approach, but keep it under surveillance. If anyone goes near it, detain them. If Lucas turns up, bring him in. Ros, come with me." He folded the fax paper and slid it into his jacket pocket.

They were just emerging from Thames House into the crisp, fresh air of the early morning when Ros's mobile started to vibrate. Ros drew her breath in sharply when she saw the screen. _Lucas calling._ She showed it silently to Harry. His face tensed.

"Take it."

Ros hesitated, oppressed by a sudden feeling of dread so strong that it almost paralysed her. Then she flicked the key, raised the phone to her ear and answered the call.

_Thank you to all of you still reading, and especially grateful thanks to my faithful reviewers! Please join them - even a critical review is better than no review at all!_ :)


	9. Chapter 9

_CHAPTER NINE_

"There he is." Ros jumped, startled out of her brooding thoughts as Harry Pearce's voice broke the tense silence. She joined him at the window where he was watching Lucas North making his way towards the safe house. Even at this distance she could see the panic that she had heard on the telephone reflected in the way Lucas was moving; there was tension in every line of his body.

"Keep back." Harry sounded almost as on edge as the younger man looked. "I don't want him to know you're here."

Ros shifted uneasily. "Harry, don't you think - "

"No," Harry snapped. "And neither should you." Ros bit her lip. "Ros, at best he's disobeyed orders and been criminally irresponsible. At worst he could have betrayed both of us - and the Service. I know he asked for you, but we can't let him dictate to us. I want him off balance. Let me do this my way."

It was an order, not a request, and unwillingly Ros subsided. Lucas hadn't sounded like a threat on the phone; he had sounded more like a man at the end of his tether. She could still hear him – breathless, panicky, his voice strained to breaking point and his words tumbling over one another. _Ros, I'm in trouble … I need your help. Please, Ros …_ _I don't know what to do._ But Harry, who had taken the phone from her hand as she was struck momentarily dumb with the shock, had been adamant that he was not going to allow her see him alone. He had cut short Lucas's incoherent pleading and ordered him to go immediately to an MI-5 safe house in South London; Ros would meet him there. Then he had driven himself and Ros there in an MI-5 pool car. Now he turned to her as Lucas stopped on the other side of the road, watching the house just as Ros had watched his flat a few hours previously.

"Into the kitchen, Ros." Harry pointed towards the old-fashioned serving hatch in the wall. "When I tap on that, you come in. Not before. Clear?"

Ros knew better than to argue. She slipped into the tiny kitchen, closed the door and drew a chair close to the hatch. When she heard the knock at the door, she hurriedly switched her mobile to silent mode. The front door clicked open.

"What are you - " Lucas's question was truncated by Harry's barked: "Inside." The door slammed, and through the sliver of a gap between the shutters of the hatch Ros glimpsed Lucas's shadow passing the window.

"Where's Ros?" He was trying, she thought, to sound demanding, but the strain in his voice, pitching it notably higher than usual, betrayed him. "She'll understand … I want to talk to her."

"You'll talk to me." The words were hostile and unyielding; Harry's tone the one Ros remembered horribly well from her own interrogation when he had learned of her involvement with Yalta. She suppressed a shiver at the memory. "Sit down. Give me your gun." Chair legs scraped, followed by a metallic clicking as Harry checked the weapon. "I ordered you to return to the Grid this morning. Why didn't you?"

"I – there – I – I had a meet. I was on my way."

"A meet with whom?" Harry demanded.

"An asset. An asset I've been … cultivating."

"You're lying." Silence. "You didn't go home last night, either. Where _did_ you go, Lucas?"

"I did have to meet someone. They – I think they – she … may be in – in danger, Harry."

"She? Your '_asset_'?" The way Harry said the word conveyed his disbelief. "Is this '_asset' _in the system?" There was a pause in which Ros assumed Lucas had shaken his head. "Why not?"

"Harry …" there was a pleading note in Lucas's voice now. "I can explain - "

"I don't want explanations. I want the truth. And if you don't give it to me I'll hand you over to internal security for a full interrogation, Lucas. _Stop lying!_" The words were a shout, and Ros flinched. She could hear Lucas's ragged breathing across the few feet that separated them. Harry abruptly changed tack.

"Why did you divert from your route when you were escorting Danielle Ortiz?"

"I told you … we had a tail – I _told_ you that, I saw it!" Lucas burst out.

"The CIA didn't," Harry pointed out.

"They didn't agree with giving us access to Cybershell, you know they didn't! All they wanted was an excuse to – to pull the plug, Harry, I give you my word … I saw the car, I _had_ to lose it!"

"Was your unscheduled coffee break part of your diversion?" Harry rapped.

"My - " Lucas checked himself a fraction too late. "Danielle was jumpy, I – I thought it might settle her for the – for the rest of the trip."

"Liar." Harry sounded almost bored. "Who was the man Ortiz saw you talking to?" No reply. "You're running out of time, Lucas. If you want an interrogation cell the door's wide open and waiting."

"He bumped into me … that's all, it – it was nothing." There was a rising note of panic in Lucas's voice; he didn't seem to understand the import of the question and his reply was unconvincing. "Harry, you - you don't understand. I can't stay here, I have to find her - " Ros heard the sounds of movement.

"Stay where you are!" The gun barrel clicked, very close, and Ros caught her breath. "You're going nowhere until I know exactly who you are, what you are and whom you've been working for. Sit down, put your hands on the table and keep them there. Find whom?" Lucas said nothing. "_Find whom?"_

Silence. There was a sharp tap on the serving-hatch. Ros's hands were damp. She wiped them swiftly on her jeans as she got up, took a second to steady herself and walked out into the room. Lucas's head swung round.

"_Ros._" The word was a mix of relief and apprehension. He half-rose from his seat, but subsided again when Harry jabbed the pistol between his shoulder-blades. "Ros, please – you have to help me - "

"Who is Maya Lahan?" she demanded.

She watched the colour drain from his face, leaving it ashen. "How … you – how do you - "

Ros put the old photograph of him and the doctor down on the table in front of him. Lucas went very still; a prominent vein in his forehead throbbed visibly.

"Who is she?" Ros asked again.

"She … she's an old friend." His voice was shaking and he kept his eyes on the photograph. "A girlfriend .. it – it – it was years ago. Ros - "

"Like your 'old friend' on the Embankment?" Ros slid the photograph of Lucas and Vaughn Edwards onto the table. This time Lucas gasped before he could stop himself.

"Is this the man Danielle Ortiz saw you meeting?" Harry leaned over him, and Lucas, sandwiched between the two of them, shrank back."_Is it_?"

Lucas clenched his hands together, but Ros had seen that they were trembling.

"Lucas." When he looked up at her his expression reminded Ros of an animal at bay – terrified, trapped, desperately seeking an escape route and yet with a few strands of cunning still left to draw on. She held his look as she spoke. "A deception that elevates us is dearer than a host of low truths."

"Tsvetayeva," he whispered. His face worked for a second. "I thought … if I told you … I thought you'd understand. Help."

"Only if you_ do_ tell me the truth," Ros said, as coldly as she could. "However low it may be."

She watched his Adam's apple move as he swallowed hard.

"How d – did you know? About Maya?"

"You were seen," Ros answered. "At St Bart's, chatting her up. And you talk in your sleep. _I've fixed it, Maya. _Fixed what?"

She saw him make that tell-tale gesture of running a hand round his chin as he hesitated. _Trying to work out how much to tell us. Preparing the next lie. _She was about to challenge him when Harry Pearce stepped forward and thrust his face into the younger man's.

"You have the time it takes me to finish speaking," he said. His voice reminded Ros of a hissing snake, low, sibilant and just as venomous. "The truth, or I call internal security and your future will be limited by the walls of the smallest, darkest, most uncomfortable interrogation cell I can find." When Lucas shuddered visibly but still didn't say anything he spat," Your choice," turned away from him, and reached for his mobile.

Lucas swivelled towards Ros. He looked terrified, and she knew why. During his debriefing on his return from Russia he had mentioned to her the claustrophobia he had developed during his incarceration. She had known him to have to leave interviews with suspects because of it, and had silently admired him for mastering the condition during their flight through the disused Underground tunnels. Now she forced herself not to show her instinctive sympathy for the mute terror in his eyes and looked impassively back at him as Harry started to dial.

"All right!" Lucas held his head in his hands for a moment, breathing quickly, trying to control himself. "I – please, please … all right." Harry stopped dialling, but kept the phone in his hand as he looked enquiringly towards his section chief. Lucas glanced appealingly towards Ros.

"The truth," she said.

"I – I'm … I'm being blackmailed. Coerced."

"By whom?" Harry demanded.

Lucas extended an unsteady hand towards the photographs. "By him."

"I presume 'he' has a name?" Harry prompted sarcastically.

Lucas nodded. "May I have a glass of water?"

"Fetch him one," Harry snapped to Ros. When she brought it Lucas gulped the contents, steadying the glass with both hands.

"His name's Vaughn - Vaughn Edwards." He was nervously clasping and unclasping his hands.

"And he's blackmailing you about what?" Ros asked.

"Cybershell." His eyes flickered constantly between the two of them. "He wanted details – technical specifications … of the system. And – and – and the codes. All of it."

Harry and Ros exchanged glances.

"I presume he didn't buy you a pint in the pub and suggest you e-mail him a copy of the instruction manual?" Harry suggested. Silently, Lucas shook his head, staring down at the table. Ros noticed beads of sweat along his hairline.

"Then how?" Harry sat down opposite him. When Lucas kept his eyes down, he shoved the phone threateningly under his nose. _"How? _How did he first approach you?_"_

"Harry, I – I – he - " Again, the panic-stricken look around the room, a fleeting glance towards the door. Harry shook his head.

"Don't even think about it."

"You saw him," Ros cut in. "That day when you came to fetch me home from the hospital. Was that when he made the approach?"

Lucas nodded. "Yes." It was barely more than a whisper.

"He threatened you?" A nod. "With what?"

"I can't." For a moment Ros thought he was going to break down altogether, but somehow Lucas just managed to keep his composure. "I can't … you won't understand." He was looking at Harry rather than Ros now. "You won't believe me."

Ros winced at the look of utter disgust on Harry Pearce's face as he reached into the inside pocket of his jacket.

"It was with exposure, wasn't it? By using _this_." He slapped the faxed photograph down onto the table.

"Oh God." It was a strangled cry. Lucas covered his eyes and turned his head away, but Harry wrenched his hands down from his face and shoved him back to face the photograph.

"Look at it!" he shouted. "I said _look, _you miserable little bastard!" Ros felt her stomach clench and gritted her teeth to try and control the nausea that welled up inside her. "That," Harry said viciously, 'is the British Embassy in Dakar, where seventeen people died in the explosion of a bomb left inside the building in a tan-coloured leather briefcase - just like this one - during a trade reception in November 1993." He seized Lucas North's shirt collar and jerked his head up to face him. "No wonder you were dancing to Vaughn Edward's tune."

"I _wasn't_!" Ros jumped despite herself as the words erupted from the younger man. "If I had, do you think Danielle Ortiz would ever have reached the Grid? She'd be dead and Cybershell would be in his hands by now!"

"So you're just an innocent victim of circumstance." Harry snorted in contempt. 'And this," he stabbed an accusatory finger at the photograph, 'was photo-shopped on his laptop while you were in Cumbria walking the fells?"

"No." Now Lucas's voice did break. "I was there but … but - oh God, what's the use?" He dropped his head back into his hands. "I knew you wouldn't believe me, even if I told you the truth. You'd believe the worst … you always do." He looked up at Harry, then across at Ros. His eyes were wet. "Do you really think I'd do something like that, Ros? Surely … surely_ you_ can't believe that of me?"

Ros hesitated. Photographs could be forged; she knew that. But then there was the Dakar stamp in his passport. Yet she still couldn't reconcile the Lucas North she had known and worked with for almost three years with a man cold-blooded enough to deliberately plant a bomb in a roomful of civilians.

"If you didn't do it, prove it," she said. "Explain."

"If I do, will you help Maya? Please, Ros. I – I don't care what … what happens to me. But save her … please."

Ros shot a quick glance at Harry. He was still watching Lucas with loathing written all over his face, but he gave her an imperceptible nod. Ros leaned against the wall and folded her arms.

"The truth, then, Lucas. All of it. Now."

He licked his lips. "I knew her – Maya – years ago. At college. We – we were … together. My father didn't approve." Ros remembered that Lucas's mother had died when he was two; he had once told her that he barely remembered her. "Then she told me she thought she was pregnant." He swallowed. "I knew … whatever he thought, my father would … would insist I marry her. Being a minister … he had to." He shoved his chair back, got up and walked to the far wall. Ros saw Harry's hand cover the pistol, but he made no move. "I felt … trapped. I was scared. I couldn't …" colour stained his otherwise pale face. "So I – I left."

"You mean you ran away," Harry said contemptuously.

"If you want." Lucas raked a hand through his hair. "I drifted for a while, working … Spain, North Africa. The way students do. I met him … Vaughn … in Dakar. I was working at the casino. We got talking … then he asked me if I wanted to earn some extra money."

"Doing what?" Harry demanded.

"Errands. Running messages. Deliveries." Lucas was still pacing, to and fro, between the table and the wall. "He told me he was working for the government of the UK - things that couldn't be officially acknowledged. I believed him."

Harry snorted his incredulity. Ros watched Lucas's head go down, and wondered. He was an intelligent, sensitive man, but he could be gullible even now. She remembered how he had been taken in by Sarah Caulfield, and the expert way in which Oleg Darshavin had manipulated him. At the age of twenty-one he might have been even more naïve. _Is it possible?_

"And how exactly did you think deliberately planting a bomb in the British Embassy would further '_officially unacknowledged'_ British government policy?" Harry's voice dripped disdain and repugnance.

"I_ didn't_ plant it!" Lucas shouted. "I would never, _ever_ have done such a thing!" Suddenly the despair and the fear had gone, replaced by a blazing, vibrant, intense anger. "It wasn't _like _that!" He tugged at his shirt collar as if it were choking him. "I've lived for fifteen years with the knowledge of what happened in Dakar, Harry, eight of them in a Russian prison cell! You know what that was like … you _know_ what they did to me. If I – if I were capable of planting that bomb … _knowing_ it was a bomb, knowing what it would do … do you think I would have resisted them, taken the pain and not told the Russians everything they wanted to know? I could have bought my way out … _sold_ out! _I'm not that man, Harry! _Whatever that," he pointed with a shaking finger towards the picture," shows, it isn't true. I didn't know!"

"You … you, of _all_ people." Harry shook his head. "You expect me to believe that you thought you were delivering what – love letters? Brown envelopes stuffed with greenbacks? Christmas cards?"

Lucas stared at him, and Ros saw the anger draining out of him. All his energy seemed to go with it; he slumped back into his chair.

"No. He showed me." His voice was flat now, _hopeless_, she thought. "He showed me the contents. Documents. Files. That's all. That's what I saw. Then he told me to go and change, said I wasn't dressed smartly enough to get in, even with an invitation. He'd given me one … in those days, pre-2001, it was enough. Little security. I changed, and then I took the case. He said … he said I was to ring him as soon as I'd delivered it. Discreetly. Gave me a phone to call on. That was when the – when the bomb went off. I realised later … newspaper reports … that it – it must have been the detonator. He switched them … switched the cases." He was mumbling now. "I saw them … people, like – like ghosts …. stumbling out of the building. Covered in blood. Bodies. And I realised it was me … I'd done it. But I didn't know. " He started to cry quietly. "I swear to you … I didn't know."

"And Vaughn?" Ros's throat was tight, but she managed to get the words out when Harry said nothing.

"I never saw him again. He … just vanished. That night at the hospital, it was the first time …. since. He told me Maya was … was in London. Then he reminded me about Dakar. He knew I was with the Service. Said he'd send the evidence to … to MI-5 if I didn't get him the information ... about Cybershell. Ros -" he looked desperately up at her and wiped his eyes awkwardly on his sleeves. "He knows where Maya works. Where she lives. Please … _please_ … she – she needs protection. He'll hurt her … to punish me - "

Before Ros could speak, Harry intervened.

"Maya Lahan is missing. She didn't report for work last night." Ros sensed him gauging whether he should add the rest of what they knew. "She lives with a Michael Riesborough." As Lucas looked blankly at him, he said quietly: "It's one of Vaughn's aliases."

"No. _No_!" The second word was a wail. "Oh God … Maya … _no!" _He buried his face into his hands and rocked back and forward, mumbling the doctor's name.

Harry beckoned to Ros and drew her into the hall. "Contact Ruth. Tell her I need one of the interrogation rooms made ready and four officers seconded from Internal Security to guard him round the clock. Tariq will need to put a tap on his home phone and his mobile."

Ros wanted to ask if he believed Lucas's explanation about Dakar, but she knew that for the moment at least the issue had to take a back seat. "What about the Met? To search for Lahan?" she murmured instead. Harry shook his head.

"No. She's the bait. We wait for him to come to us." He led the way back into the room. "Lucas!" His voice was harsh, unsympathetic. "Pull yourself together. Who is Vaughn working for?"

Lucas didn't seem to grasp the question at first. At last he said in a choked voice: "I don't know. The Russians … maybe the Chinese. I don't know, Harry."

_Probably both,_ Ros thought grimly. Either would want to get their hands on Cybershell, and both produced a steady stream of world-class computer hackers and cyber-criminals.

"How do you contact him?" Harry snapped.

Lucas shook his head. "I don't. He – he rings me. Pay as you go phones … a different one each time. Harry … he'll kill her if I - " he stopped, helplessly.

Harry Pearce held up his hand. "Listen to me. I'm taking you back to Thames House. You'll be held there and we will wait until Vaughn Edwards contacts you. If you co-operate fully, do _exactly_ as you're ordered and help us bring him in, then I will consider - consider, no more – something other than your immediate decommissioning and subsequent prosecution under the Terrorism Act as an accessory to murder. Do you understand?"

"I'm not a - " Lucas closed his eyes for a second. "Yes. Yes, I understand. Just … help Maya. Please."

Harry ignored the words and turned his back on him. Ros returned to the kitchen, relayed Harry's instructions to Ruth and abruptly cut off the analyst's stream of understandable but as yet unanswerable questions. She glanced through the half-open door. Lucas was resting his head on his hands, his eyes closed. Harry was watching him, his expression a cocktail of incredulity, frustration and sadness, and in that instant, Ros knew that like herself, he was still unsure whether Lucas was guilty of being dangerously susceptible and incredibly naive or of something much, much worse. Either way, he would have to be interrogated further, and Harry's approach was right; for now apprehending Vaughn Edwards was the most urgent task. A decision on Lucas's fate would come later.

_He's been a permanent fixture ever since they brought you. I'm glad it was you … you're safe, I'm here. _Suddenly her eyes burned. Adam had sometimes teased her that global warming might melt her Ice Maiden act one day. _Well, not here, Ros. Not here. And not now. _She straightened her spine, set her jaw and returned to the living room to begin the wait.

_I'm not sure this works as I wanted it to. Hope it's OK! Please review and let me know. :)_


	10. Chapter 10

_CHAPTER TEN_

"Right." Harry Pearce buttoned his jacket and gave her a taut smile as the two of them walked briskly out of the Home Office. "That's the bloody red-tape out of the way. You're official." He had already told the rest of the team that Lucas North was temporarily suspended for 'health reasons'. "Let's get back to work and let the others know."

Ros smiled back. When Harry had informed her that he was reinstating her as section chief, she had felt obliged to remind him that she was still on medical leave and hadn't yet been cleared as fit to work by David Murray. She might as well have waved a Spanish flag at a maddened bull; he had launched into a tirade liberally larded with expletives, and practically frog-marched her to a meeting with the Home Secretary to obtain his approval. William Towers had been appointed while she lay unconscious in intensive care, but Ros realised that her reputation preceded her from the way in which he took a few cautious steps backwards when they entered his office. Harry Pearce's mouth had twitched with momentary amusement. It had been a welcome, if fleeting moment of comic relief in the unrelenting grimness of the last few days.

For forty-eight hours now, Lucas's phones - analysed, tapped, and monitored around the clock - had remained obdurately silent. Harry had ordered that his section chief be detained in one of the old, now disused interrogation rooms tucked away under the eaves of Thames House; each had a small window that looked out over the river. When Ros had looked at him in surprise he had muttered self-consciously, '_He's claustrophobic. No need to turn the knife.' _In his prison eyrie, Lucas himself was almost as silent as his mobile. When questioned he answered without resistance, and when the questions stopped, he would lie on his bed with his face to the wall or stare blankly out of the window. His guards reported that he slept very little, and he refused to eat; meal trays were returned untouched. Harry had him checked out by the Thames House doctor, who tentatively diagnosed 'shock', probably, Ros thought, because he didn't know what else to suggest. Personally she thought it was shame rather than shock that lay behind Lucas's behaviour; he avoided eye contact with both of them and spoke only when he was directly addressed.

As she and Harry climbed into his car she ventured, "How much longer do you think we can wait, Harry?"

Harry grimaced and jerked his thumb back towards the pompous neo-classical bulk of the Home Office. "Apparently Beecher's been cranking the pressure up. If there's no contact from Edwards by tomorrow morning it has to go public. A general alert for him and Lahan – with a cover story, obviously."

"He must know that'll spook him. If he does a runner it could be years before he surfaces again. We might never find out who he's working for." _And it won't do Dr Lahan's longevity prospects much good, either._ Twice Lucas had begged her for information about the girl; twice Ros had to tell him they had none.

"He couldn't give a bugger for that," Harry said tersely. "All he's worried about is how soon he can tell Langley that the threat to their precious cyber-baby's been safely defused." His impatient shove at the gear-stick caused the car to jolt in protest.

"Have you got someone liaising with him?" Ros asked.

"I've put Captain Pugwash on it," Harry replied sourly. "Beecher used to be a Navy Seal. They can talk sea-shanties together."

Ros stifled a smile. Harry's disillusionment with his two new recruits was palpable. She sympathised. Dmitri Levendis was earnest and diligent, but little else.

As they sped down Millbank her mobile rang. "Myers." The response made her flick it instantly onto speakerphone. "Red-flash," Ruth Evershed's voice repeated. "North Star in operation."

"On our way," Ros said as Harry shot through an amber light and pressed the accelerator to the floor.

Ruth was waiting for them by the pods with Tariq close on her heels like an anxious puppy.

"He called fifteen minutes ago," she said immediately.

Harry turned to Tariq. "Did you triangulate it?" The young Pakistani shook his head regretfully. "Transcript?"

"Here, Harry." Ruth held out a typed sheet of paper. Harry gave her a swift smile of thanks and turned on his heel. They took the lift in silence as Harry speed-read the transcript of the exchange between Lucas and Vaughn Edwards. Then he handed it over to Ros who skimmed it quickly as they hurried down the dusty corridor.

"Outside," Harry said without ceremony to the guard as they entered the room. With a murmured '_sir_' the man obediently joined his colleague in the corridor, and Harry moved to the table. Lucas had been standing at the window; rays of sunlight at his back turned him into little more than a featureless shadow.

"Sit," Harry ordered, pointing to the chair opposite. Lucas did so; Ros carried over the guard's chair and followed suit. Harry perused the transcript again.

" '_You don't need to worry about Maya, she's safe with me. Safer than she'd be with a killer'?" _he read. Lucas's sallow face flushed, but he said nothing. Harry read on. " '_Oh, don't tell me, it was all__ my__ doing. I set you up and you're as innocent as the day is long. You surely don't believe anyone's going to swallow that. Where's your evidence? Maya won't believe you, and neither will anyone else. There were witnesses, son. You were seen._"

Lucas's fists clenched and a muscle in his face twitched. Harry looked up from the paper. "_Are _you a liar?"

"No." It was impossible to read anything into the toneless way in which he spoke. For a second he held Harry's look, and then his usually bright blue eyes, which were muddied by shadows now, lowered again.

"And he believes you'll give him Cybershell." Harry went back to reading the transcript. Ros was watching Lucas, trying to interpret his leaden body language.

"Yes." With an effort Lucas sat up straight. "He's a mercenary … it's always been his only motivation. He'll get paid by his employers. They get Cybershell. I get Maya's safety. Straight business transaction. He understands that." He put a hand to his head and shook it as if he were dizzy. Harry glanced sharply at him.

"Have you eaten today?" To Ros's surprise Harry got up. "I'll bring something."

When he had left, Lucas rubbed his red-rimmed eyes and said wearily: "I'm sorry, Ros."

Ros pushed at a dust ball with the toe of her shoe. She longed to shake him and shout the question. _Did you do it? _ Instead, she asked: "Why didn't you tell someone?"

"Afraid. Ashamed." Lucas shrugged helplessly. "I don't know."

Ros thought she knew a little more than that. Harry's approval had always been vital to Lucas and fear of his reaction had probably helped to tie his tongue. She wanted to tell him that whatever he'd done, Harry would come to understand, and might eventually even forgive him. _He did me._ But this was neither the time nor the place for sympathy. She made her voice more business-like.

"You do know the risk in this."

His lips curled in a weak attempt at an ironic smile, and for a split second he looked like the man she had considered a friend. "I don't think I have much left to lose, Ros."

He looked away and fell silent again as Harry returned with some sandwiches on a tray and a mug of coffee. "Eat," he said tersely. "You can't do this properly on an empty stomach."

The words were brusque, but Ros thought she sensed the same compassion that had led him to hold Lucas here rather than in the spartan, windowless cells in the basement. As Lucas mechanically forced the food down, Harry reviewed the plan again. Vaughn had said he would meet Lucas in Battersea Park at six a.m. the following day. He would bring Maya Lahan with him and exchange her for the information Lucas had said he now possessed about Cybershell. A simple, straightforward trade. _Except that it won't be._ In reality the handover would be a sting operation for Vaughn Edwards _and_ the shadowy 'employers' pulling his strings. Ros, with back-up concealed nearby, would move in to arrest him once the doctor and Lucas were out of harm's way. That, Ros thought savagely, was one interrogation she _could_ look forward to conducting.

_If the plan works._ That unwelcome thought had been lurking in the back of her mind ever since she and Harry had first begun to concoct it the previous day. An enormous amount depended on Lucas's willingness – and ability – to play his part. Harry had reassured her about the former – whether Lucas had been lying or telling the truth, his only way out of this situation was to co-operate with them. If he _had_ been tricked all those years ago, only Vaughn could confirm it and for that he needed Vaughn in custody. If he were guilty as Vaughn Edwards claimed, then his only, remote hope of lenient treatment lay in helping MI-5 to foil the plot to steal Cybershell. But most important, Vaughn had doubled the blackmail stakes by taking Maya Lahan hostage. Lucas had claimed (and for all they knew might really _mean)_ that he didn't care about his own fate. Ros had her doubts about that. From her own experience she knew that even the most unlikely people did. But there was _no_ doubt about his desperation to save Maya Lahan. He would do whatever it took to do that. So he had the incentive to carry this off. His _ability_ to do so was another matter entirely. Ros thought he looked like a man on the verge of nervous collapse. She would never normally consider sending a field officer out in this condition. Yet he _had_ to be convincing. Vaughn had to believe that Lucas was genuinely handing over highly classified information. If he got so much as the whiff of a suspicion that he was being tricked, they would lose the intelligence coup of identifying his puppet-masters. And neither Lucas nor Maya would be likely to survive the failure of the operation.

When Harry had finished, he leaned towards Lucas North. His voice was hard.

"You follow the script to the letter, Lucas. One step out of line … one _hint_ of deception, and I will have you behind bars for the rest of your life. This is the last warning you'll get. Make your choice."

"I have." There was a pause. "Trust me, Harry."

Harry got to his feet. "Prove to me that I can. Ros!" He strode to the door. Ros had one fleeting glimpse of Lucas's slumped shoulders and bowed head as the door closed behind them.

Slowly and carefully, Ros swept her binoculars over the mist-shrouded park. The bandstand looked hazy and insubstantial, like something out of a Japanese print, and Ros silently cursed the capriciousness of British weather. The park was empty at this hour but she just knew Vaughn Edwards was here somewhere; she could feel the man's presence, like a vibration in the damp air.

"You sure you couldn't use some gum, ma'am?"

_No, I sodding well could not_. Aloud, and without removing her binoculars from her eyes, she said as politely as she could, "No, thank you." The CIA had _insisted _on sending the bloody Man from La Mancha with her, and all her protests had been in vain. Paco Gutierrez wasn't unpleasant, but Ros' s tolerance for CIA '_observers'_ was limited at the best of times, which this wasn't. And if he called her '_ma'am'_ one more time she'd rearrange his shiny white American dentures for him.

She resumed watching. She and Senor Gutierrez had been jammed, chilled and uncomfortable, in the scruffy Portakabin used by the one remaining regular park-keeper for the last hour, checking that there was no sign of any uninvited guest gate-crashing the rendezvous. Lucas had been escorted back to the safe house in the early hours of the morning - Harry was taking no chances that someone might spot him leaving Thames House, put two and two together and realise that he was still being controlled by MI-5 – and would be making his way to the park alone. He had refused either to wear a wire or to carry a gun, insisting that doing so would betray his role and put Maya Lahan's life in greater danger. Ros had sensed that he was also challenging Harry to trust him enough to agree. Harry had done so, but Lucas didn't know about the minute tracker that Tariq had inserted into the hem of his coat.

"Ruth?" she murmured. "Where's our back-up?"

"Two hundred metres south of the park," Ruth's voice replied tinnily in her ear. "Lucas should be coming into view in the next two minutes, Ros."

"Thanks." Ros peered into the drizzle.

"You trust this guy, ma'am?" Gutierrez asked.

"Yes, I do. So should you," Ros snapped. She tensed. "Here he comes." She heard the CIA man checking his gun and glanced sideways. "Put that away, please. You fire on my order, not before. And not otherwise."

"Ma'am, it's CIA protocol. And Cybershell - "

"This is London. You'll get your baby back. Our way." Ros took one eye off Lucas and glared at him. Gutierrez's eyes narrowed, but he did as she said. Ros returned her concentration to Lucas, who was now close enough that she didn't need the binoculars. He had turned his collar up against the chill above it, his face was rigid with tension. Ros scrutinised the area. _Show yourself, damn you._

"We could have a no-show if your guy's double-crossing us," Gutierrez pointed out.

"He isn't," Ros snapped. "Vaughn will - " she broke off. "There!"

Lucas must have seen the man at the same second that she did. He turned abruptly as Vaughn Edwards emerged around the rhododendron bushes, one hand clamped around Maya Lahan's upper arm and the other pressing a gun into her spine. The doctor looked beside herself. Her eyes were bulging with terror, and when she saw Lucas she wailed his name in a quavering voice laced with hysteria. Lucas moved towards them but stopped dead as Vaughn flicked the safety catch off the gun. Maya's hiccupping sobs climbed several notes higher in panic.

"Hurt her and I swear I'll kill you," Lucas snarled.

Vaughn laughed. "Spare us the melodrama, Lucas." Ros felt her blood boil at his sneering drawl. "Don't they write you a better script at MI-5?"

"I don't give a shit for MI-5," Lucas retorted bitterly. "Nor they for me. Not now. _You _made sure of that. I'm finished with them anyway. They only ever used me. Like you." He raised the envelope he was carrying. "This is what you want. All _I_ want is Maya. Let her go. Let her come to me."

"You must think me as bloody naïve as you once were, son." As Maya Lahan struggled to free herself, he switched his grip and wrenched her arm up hard behind her back. "Stand still, you silly little bitch!" Maya squealed in pain and Ros saw Lucas blanch.

"All right!" He placed the envelope on the ground and backed away from it with his hands raised. "Take it, just let her go."

"Ma'am – Ros." Gutierrez's Spearmint-laden breath was warm on Ros's ear. "We can't let this happen."

"Hold your nerve," Ros snapped. "We have back up. As soon as he releases the girl we'll go in."

"So what are you intending to do now you're no longer the golden boy at MI-5?" Vaughn's voice was taunting, derisive. "Now they know what you _really_ are? Nothing more than a greedy, pathetic little killer for hire, eh? What kind of a future do you think _he_ can offer you?" The last question was to Maya, who cringed and cried as he barked it into her face.

Ros could see the muscles in Lucas's face working as he battled to master his anger and control his fear for Maya Lahan.

"That's not your concern. I've done what you wanted. Now, take it, you bastard. Take it and _let her go_."

Ros, her hand involuntarily straying to her own gun, watched Vaughn. He still seemed to be doubting Lucas's sincerity; his eyes were flicking constantly between the younger man's face and the envelope. At last he shoved Maya forward, prodding her shaking body towards it, his eyes never leaving Lucas.

"Bend down. Pick it up." He released her arm but kept the gun trained on her. Maya was so terrified that she could barely do as he said, but at last she straightened and held it out to him. Ros could see the envelope quivering in her trembling hands almost as much as the leaves on the trees that surrounded the bandstand were fluttering in the light wind.

It took a second for the inconsistency to strike her. _What wind? _The mist hadn't dissipated an inch since their arrival. _Shit!_

"Go!" she shouted at Gutierrez, as she span to the door. "Back-up! _Now!"_ she rapped into her wire. As she threw herself outside she heard a shrill, hysterical scream from Maya Lahan and Lucas shouting. _Maya! Maya, run! The shed – run! _If she hadn't seen it with her own eyes, Ros would have thought the scene had been taken from a bad detective story. Three men – Asian, by the looks of it - had sprung down from where they had been hiding on the lower branches of the trees surrounding the bandstand, shielded from view by the dense, rich foliage. _Christ, they must have been there for hours. _Lucas, heedless of the fact that the man was armed, had thrown himself between one of them and Maya, the second had raced to join Vaughn, and the third was turning towards the approaching threat of Ros and Gutierrez.

Ros whipped out her gun and fired a shot at his feet. "Security Services! Drop your weapon, raise your hands!" She heard the squeal of tyres. _CO-19. Hallelujah._

The crack of a bullet behind her told her how wrong she had been. She heard Gutierrez swear and turned to see two more Chinese spilling from a car that had skidded to a halt fifty yards away. The first was urging Vaughn Edwards away, and the mercenary still had the Cybershell data.

"_Stop!"_ Ros shouted, and raised her gun just as Maya Lahan, still wailing in a thin, high-pitched scream, lurched in panic between her and them. Ros cursed, sprang forward, and pushed her aside just as Lucas, who had been wrestling with the third Chinese, scrambled to his feet with the man's gun in his hands.

"_Ros! _He pointed, and she glanced over her shoulder to see the CO19 squad charging into the square. _About bloody time. _She could hear Gutierrez urging them to cut off the exits from the park, and Vaughn and the Chinese stopped in mid-flight as they did so.

"Put the gun down!" Ros trained her own on them. "Drop it!" She spared a second to glance at Lucas, who had dragged Maya Lahan aside and was trying – unsuccessfully – to calm her. "You're surrounded. Drop it and raise your hands!"

"Well, well, well." Vaughn's mocking, contemptuous drawl hadn't altered by one iota. "You finally grew some _cojones _and joined the big boys, Lucas. _Two _doting females, no less." Suddenly his tone turned vicious. "I don't think you need them both."

Instinctively, Ros threw herself to the ground as he fired. The bullet cracked and someone howled like a wounded animal. Behind her the car engine coughed into life. Ros heard two more shots and a heavy, dull thud. She glimpsed Gutierrez sprawled on the gravel and Vaughn leaping into the car as she scrambled to her feet. Then the vehicle's engine roared again and, headlights blazing through the mist, it came straight at her.

The safety of the trees was fifty feet away. Ros ran for her life, skidding on the gravel as her feet fought for purchase. She could feel the engine's heat closing on her like the breath of a hungry predator. The pain in her lungs as she fought for air was excruciating. She stumbled, almost fell, and snatched a glance backwards. The car was closer than the trees. _Too late, Ros. Too bloody slow._

From behind her came two quick reports like small explosions. Then a glancing blow knocked her off her feet. As she hit the ground with a painful thud, her body thrown into a skidding roll from the impact, Ros heard a loud squeal of brakes, and the clanging, grinding, ringing screech of metal on metal. Voices were shouting urgently, but she couldn't hear what they were saying.

_Lucas._ She wasn't sure whether she'd spoken or whether the word was just in her head. _My head._ She was still panting as if she'd just run an Olympic sprint final; speech was beyond her. _Stop them. Cybershell._

She tried to lever herself up but a wave of pain prevented her. _Shit. _She felt a shadow fall on her. Ros forced her eyes open and managed to look up. _Lucas._

Lucas North stood over her, a pistol held loosely in his hand. He gave her a faint, sad smile. Then everything slid into darkness.

_Thank you for all your kind reviews! Could you manage one more? :)_


	11. Chapter 11

_(I could have chosen to end the story here. But as you can see from the last few lines, I haven't. I hope you will stick with me for a couple more chapters and an ending that would never have made it into Series 9.)_

_CHAPTER ELEVEN_

"Miss Myers. Miss Myers? Ros!"

Ros lifted her face an inch from the gravel and managed a mumbled 'yes'. The black-clad blur above her shouted something over his shoulder, and a moment later strong hands lifted her cautiously into a sitting position.

"Ros?" the voice repeated. "Are you hurt?"

Ros squinted up at the owner of it and recognised a CO-19 officer who had led the operation to release hostages from the Saudi Trade Centre.

"Greg." She coughed; the damp air was heavy with petrol and the stench of burned rubber. "I'm fine."

"You said that last time," the officer said wryly. "Why the bloody hell do you always insist on getting yourself into the _merde_ when I'm on duty?"

Ros summoned up a glare. "You were late … again," she said pointedly.

Greg laughed. "You really _are_ fine. I don't mind the damsel in distress routine; it's your overwhelming gratitude I find a bit difficult to cope with." He steadied her as Ros lurched to her feet.

"What happened?" Sirens were drawing nearer. The car, now surrounded by CO-19 men, had crashed into the bandstand; its bonnet and the left side of the vehicle had been crushed. "Where's Lucas?"

Greg looked puzzled. "The American?"

"No. One of ours. Tall, dark - " Ros stopped as her eyes found him, kneeling on the ground next to what she realised with a chill looked horribly like the body of Maya Lahan. Suddenly she remembered that bloodcurdling cry of anguish that she'd heard. _Oh shit._

Greg followed her gaze. "Well, if that's him, you're in his debt. It's thanks to him you're still here. He fired at the car and shot the tyres out. Without him, you'd be road kill." He hesitated. "Is the girl yours too?"

"No." Ros gingerly touched her face; it was sore from the grit that had scored across her skin. "Civilian." Greg groaned, and Ros knew that her fears had been confirmed. Greg understood the consequences of a civilian being killed during a police or security operation. So did she, but for the moment she was more worried about the effect on Lucas North.

_You're an intelligence officer. Not an agony aunt._ She shook herself. Her wire, unsurprisingly, hadn't survived her fall, and she needed to contact the Grid. First, she had to know what to tell them. She ignored the ache in her chest and asked, "Where's John Wayne, then?"

The CO-19 officer had been looking preoccupied, but now he gave a quick smile. "Over there." He waved towards an ambulance that had just arrived. "He took a bullet in the arm. Went straight through, he'll be fine. He was more worried about that bloody envelope."

Ros stiffened. "Does he have it?"

"Oh yeah. Dripped blood all over the place to get to the car and retrieve it. What were you doing, trying to save the Crown Jewels?"

He wasn't expecting an answer, and Ros didn't give him one. Instead, she asked: "How many casualties have we got?"

The CO-19 officer ticked them off on his fingers. "One dented CIA officer, one very concussed Chinese, one dead Chinese, two Chinese physically intact, under arrest and spitting mad, one Chinese driver seriously injured, one dead European, one dead female civilian of Middle Eastern appearance, your chap Lucas and one very shaky MI-5 officer."

"One - " Ros hadn't heard much after the words '_one dead European'. _Now she folded her arms defensively. "It's cold. Don't fuss." She swallowed. "Did you say the European's dead?"

"Yep." Greg nodded. "Cracked his skull on impact." He frowned, and Ros realised that her shock must be showing on her face. "Was he a hostage, or what?"

_Or what. _Ros shook her head. "Classified, sorry. I have to contact Thames House. Can you clear up? Get the wounded to hospital and take the others to Paddington Green?" She noticed that Lucas had stood up as paramedics ran across to where Maya lay. "Hang on to my colleague from the Land of the Free for a while, I'll need to talk to him."

She moved away towards Lucas, trying not to limp; her leg hadn't appreciated almost being run down either. Harry's words echoed in her mind. _If he __is__ innocent, only Vaughn can confirm it. So he needs Vaughn in custody. _Lucas had needed Vaughn _alive_ and in custody. With the mercenary dead, he had no way of proving that he hadn't known that he was carrying a bomb into the Dakar embassy. He had told her that he hadn't got much more to lose. He had been wrong. He had now lost any hope of proving he had been an unwitting pawn for Vaughn Edwards … _and _he had lost Maya Lahan.

The paramedics were lifting the doctor's body onto a stretcher as she approached. When Lucas saw her coming he took a few steps towards her and then stopped, as if he were fearful of what she was going to say. His eyes were red and his features drawn tight with grief and shock; Ros was reminded of the recently exchanged prisoner she had met on the day of Adam Carter's death.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I should have got her to safety."

Lucas shook his head. "It isn't your fault, Ros. It's mine." His voice was flat and mechanical but he made a visible effort. "You're bleeding. Are you all right?"

Ros ran her hand across her face again and winced. Her fingers came away bloodstained.

"It's nothing. Cuts, scratches, that's all." They fell silent and watched as the paramedics carried Maya's now blanketed body away towards one of the waiting ambulances. "They said it was you … you who fired the shots. Stopped the car." Lucas nodded. He seemed indifferent to the fact. Ros hesitated. "You know Vaughn's dead. When it crashed."

She waited for some reaction, but Lucas gave none that she could see. He was still watching the paramedics as they loaded the stretcher bearing the doctor's body into the vehicle. Unwillingly, she went on, wondering if he really hadn't understood the implications for him personally of the mercenary's death. "He never said, did he, that he tricked you in Dakar? Not on the phone … not here?"

Slowly, Lucas looked back at her. "No," he said at last. He rubbed his eyes with his fists like a child. "No. Maya's …" he stopped, and clamped a hand over his mouth as if he were afraid that the unutterable word would escape if he didn't. "It doesn't matter, Ros. I don't care."

"It matters to me!" Ros said sharply. "I'd have been killed if you hadn't stopped that car. You fired those shots for me, Lucas, and that's why the bastard's dead!"

"I wasn't going to do it a second time. Leave you to die alone." He thrust his hands deep into his pockets. "He hated me. Despised me. I understand that, now it's too late. He didn't need to shoot her." His voice shook. "He did that deliberately because he knew … he knew what she meant to me. He didn't deserve to live and I couldn't let you die. The rest …" he shrugged. There was a long moment of silence. At last he broke it. "Cybershell. Is it safe?"

"Gutierrez has it. So they say." Ros snatched with both hands at the change of subject like a rope to pull herself free of the quicksand of swelling emotion between them. "I have to talk to him. Contact Harry. Report. Can you - "

"Of course. Go on." Something that could have been a smile was gone so quickly that she might have imagined it. Lucas walked slowly away to a bench at the edge of the trees and sat down on it with his head in his hands as Ros headed as quickly as her increasingly sore and aching limbs would permit to where Paco Gutierrez, his arm in a makeshift sling, was leaning against the open doors of a second ambulance. The Cybershell envelope was clutched tightly in his uninjured hand.

"So?" he enquired, as Ros came within earshot. "Gonna report me 'cause I opened fire without your permission, ma'am?"

His tone was belligerent, but she saw the twinkle in his eye and made herself respond in like vein.

"In triplicate." She gestured at his arm. "How is it?"

"Well, I guess I won't be throwing any curve balls for a while." He winced. "They CSS?"

"They don't look like founder members of the IRA." Ros shrugged, flinched at the resulting stab of pain and wished she hadn't. "We'll find out."

The American nodded thoughtfully. "Your guy was on the level, then." He jerked his head in Lucas's direction. When Ros didn't say anything, he added, "Got some guts. You too." He grinned. "Goddamned impossible to work with, but yeah, you got guts, all right. I thought you were a goner."

"You know what they say about cats. I've still got a life or two left." Ros forced herself to smile. "I won't shake your hand. Get that stuff back to Mr Beecher with our compliments. Harry'll be in touch."

She watched the two ambulances carry away the human debris of operation North Star, said her goodbyes to Greg Simpson and the CO-19 team as they removed the wreck of the car and the vehemently protesting Chinese, and when only she and Lucas North were left at the bandstand, phoned Harry Pearce and made her report. After his initial sigh of relief on hearing her voice, Harry listened in silence. By the time Ros had reached the end of her report her head was throbbing steadily. She waited for a reaction or an order, but neither came.

"He was telling the truth, Harry," she said at last. "He did everything right. Vaughn manipulated him from start to finish. But I don't know how we can prove it. I'm sure there has to be a way, but it'll take an effort. And time."

She heard Harry sigh deeply. "We haven't _got_ time, Ros." She frowned. _What the hell does that mean? _ "There's something else that you don't know yet."

Ros's alarm grew steadily as he spoke. She looked over to where Lucas sat, his head still lowered, totally indifferent to everything around him. When Harry finally came to a halt, she became aware that an unaccustomed feeling of absolute helplessness was slowly drowning her relief that Lucas North _was_ the decent – if somewhat credulous - man she had always thought him to be.

"What do you want me to do?" she asked at last.

"Can you drive?" When Ros said yes, he said, "Get him back to the safe house. Quickly. Wait for me there. I've got to pour some oil on the troubled waters first - the Home Secretary, Beecher, probably with the Foreign Office too, if they really were CSS. I'll get there as soon as I can – before it spreads too far." He sighed again. "Well done, Ros. Good work. When they've finished pontificating they'll be pleased that Cybershell's safe. For now."

Ros hesitated. "Shall I tell him?"

"No. No, not yet. That's my job. Just take care of him. And yourself. Keep your heads down until I get there."

Ros clicked the phone off. Lucas was walking slowly in her direction. Ros momentarily closed her eyes as a wave of exhaustion hit her. Now she really _was_ cold, reaction from yet another close shave mingling with her shock at what Harry had just told her, pain in her chest and the drop in her adrenaline levels. She zipped her jacket up to her throat and got up as he arrived.

"What now?" he asked.

Ros rubbed her hands together. "Back to the safe house. He'll meet us there." She saw the confusion in his eyes and read the unspoken words. _Why the safe house and not Thames House? Do you still not trust me?_

She was grateful that, whatever he might have wondered, he didn't ask. She wasn't sure that she could have borne telling him a barefaced lie. Instead, he said quietly, "Then lets go. You're shivering."

They headed without speaking towards the gates near which Ros had left the car. The mist, she thought, seemed to be thickening again. She glanced sideways at Lucas. The weather seemed a sickeningly apt metaphor for him at the moment; each time a ray of light drove the shadows around him away, so another bank of cloud seemed to roll in to obscure it.

_Stop sounding like a sodding bad Poet Laureate, Myers. _She switched on the car heating system; Lucas looked as cold as she felt. It was Harry's practicality that he needed, not her platitudes. She loosened the seat belt to ease the discomfort from its pressure, and headed for the safe house.

When they got there, Ros made coffee for them both, and over-ruled Lucas's protests that he didn't want anything. He looked dreadful, and as an afterthought, she found a few dregs of brandy in one of the cupboards and added it to both mugs before she gave him one of them. They drank in a silence that Lucas showed no inclination to break until Ros asked quietly: "Do you know how we can contact Maya's family?"

Pain flashed across his face. "No. Her family lived in Leicester when we … when I knew her before. Her father's a Lebanese immigrant. Ran a grocer's shop. But it was so long ago … I don't even know if they're still alive." He ran a hand across his face. I hadn't seen or heard of her since - " he flinched, " since I ran away. Not until – until Vaughn told me she was here in London. Where she worked. The hospital must know."

Ros stirred her coffee. "He used her too, then. To get to you."

Lucas nodded. "I used to talk about her a lot in Dakar. Missed her. He used to pull my leg about it … tell me I was like a teenager with a crush. I suppose I gave him the weapon he needed. That and the job."

Ros heard the self-disgust in his voice, and sympathy nudged aside her exasperation with him over how naively foolish he had been.

"She still meant that much to you nearly twenty years on that you wanted to go back to her?" He had, after all, been married and had several liaisons since then.

Lucas addressed the coffee mug rather than her when he replied.

"Yes … to her and everything that she meant. To the … to the way life was then, I think. Simpler. When … oh, I don't know. When so many … _things_ hadn't happened. When it all seemed right." He put the mug down and raked his hands through his hair. "Stupid. I ran away, after all. So I don't suppose it ever _was_ like that. It just seems like it now."

Silence fell again. Since arriving, he hadn't shown any further interest in what was going to happen to him now. Though concerned by the level of his detachment, Ros was grateful, since she had no idea herself. Both of them were half-dozing, wrapped in their own silent thoughts, when a key turned in the lock. Ros didn't have time to get out of her chair before Harry strode into the room.

"Good work," he said. "You too, Lucas." Lucas's mouth quirked slightly in acknowledgement; you couldn't have called it a smile, Ros thought. "You did well. We've got the Chinese bang to rights." He paused. "I'm sorry about Miss Lahan." Lucas nodded, but he said nothing. Harry watched him for a moment, and then took a deep breath.

"Lucas, I wish I could say this has made the difference and we can take you back into the Section with a clean slate. But there's a problem."

Ros clenched her hands in her lap, digging her nails into her palms. Everything Harry felt – anger, sadness, impotence – was written on his face.

"Vaughn Edwards must have hated you very much. Not only to shoot Miss Lahan in the way he did. The photograph from Dakar; the one he initially sent to us. I could have contained that; kept it within the Section. But for the last hour copies have been arriving at the Home Office, the Foreign Office, and at Vauxhall Cross. With a helpful written annotation linking the Dakar embassy bomb to a serving MI-5 officer. The next thing will be the papers." Harry stopped and thumped his fist on the table. The remains of Lucas's coffee spilled across it. "_Damn_ it, Lucas, I can't protect you. We'd need time to investigate, to find evidence for or against. I can't buy that time, not now. I've issued a D-notice to the press, but it's only a matter of time before the photograph appears on the Net, and then it'll spread like wildfire. Anyway," he wrenched his tie loose, "anyway, the Home Office is already muttering about getting an arrest warrant issued."

Lucas moistened his lips. "What do you want me to do?"

"There's only one thing you _can_ do." Harry had been carrying a small travel bag when he entered; now he held it out to the younger man. "I had Beth go take some clothes from your flat. There's cash in here, a passport and a credit card in the same name. You'll need to head for somewhere where there's no extradition treaty with this country. Somewhere well out of reach where you can disappear."

Ros fixed her eyes on her lap. _I've heard this before._

"What – if I don't do that … what will happen?"

It was obvious from the dread in his tone that he knew, Ros thought. The question was more of an appeal to someone – _anyone – _to deny the truth that was staring him in the face.

"You'll be arrested, almost certainly found guilty, and imprisoned," Harry answered. "And you know how these things happen, Lucas. Once you're in the system … I'm sorry. It could be years."

Numbly, Lucas took the bag and stared at it. "I can't." It was a whisper. "Not prison … not again. I can't, Harry."

"I know." Now it was Harry's turn to look down at the floor. Ros heard Lucas gulp.

"May I … may I talk to Ros?"

"Of course." Harry's mobile rang. "I'll wait outside." He went into the kitchen to take the call. Lucas watched the kitchen door for a moment, blinking rapidly. Then, slowly, he turned to her.

"Ros." His voice was hoarse and filled with distress. "God, Ros ... I never meant to do this to you. We've been friends, you and I." She knew he was waiting for her to give some sign of confirmation, a nod or a smile, but her lifelong discomfort with showing emotion in public paralysed her. She sought refuge in her habitual flippancy.

"Yeah, well - with friends like me …" she trailed off and shrugged helplessly. Lucas looked shrunken, as if something of his essence had drained from him. His grief for the girl clung to him like an old coat that he couldn't quite bring himself to discard.

"I've let you down. Everyone, but especially you. Working together and being friends with you meant more to me than anything, and now I've destroyed it all." His voice caught. "I can justify all the rest of it somehow, but not that. Not losing you."

Ros wanted to say what she knew he was desperate to hear – '_you haven't_' – but yet again embarrassment choked the words, and after a second's silence Lucas looked away from her.

"Don't be stupid." It took a huge effort, but she drove herself on. "We're still friends. You saved my life. The rest is all in the past."

Lucas shook his head wearily. "If only it were, Ros." He turned, as did Ros, as Harry Pearce came back into the room. He looked for a long minute at the younger man.

"Time to go." He nodded at Ros. "This is your only chance of avoiding a prison cell, Lucas. Take it."

Lucas's deep blue eyes flicked to him. "I know I was greedy and stupid by getting involved with Vaughn in the first place, Harry. But if I'd known … that day, that he'd switched that case, nothing – _nothing_ he could have said or done would have made me take it into the embassy. I would never knowingly have done anything like that … never."

"I know you wouldn't, lad." Harry extended his hand, gripped Lucas's and shook it firmly. "Good luck. I'll wait in the car, Ros." He turned and left. The front door slammed. Lucas turned back to Ros. Tears were sparkling in his eyes.

"Whatever you think I am," his voice shook, "I'm probably all of it. But I'm not a murderer, Ros."

"Then don't hang around here and give people the opportunity to prove different," she said gruffly. "Go."

Still Lucas hesitated. Then, suddenly, he pulled something from his pocket.

"I want you to take this." He was speaking quickly, as if he were afraid of being interrupted. "An old lag in Lefortovo gave it to me. He said she'd protect me." His mouth twisted in an attempt at a smile. "She did get me home … temporarily, at least. Please. I – I just want you to be safe."

He pressed the object into her hand. Ros recognised an icon of Our Lady of Kazan. It was worn by handling and obviously very old.

"Please, Ros. For friendship. Please."

Almost involuntarily, Ros's fingers closed over it. Lucas smiled wanly in gratitude.

"I know you still can't really trust me. I understand that. I don't deserve your trust. But I can't give you proof of anything, only my word. I know it's not enough. I'm so sorry." He gave her a fleeting kiss on the cheek and turned for the door.

"Lucas!" He stopped. "Stay in touch. I'll find the proof." She saw his expression change. Doubt, disbelief, and an infinitesimal gleam of hope flashed in succession across his face. "I promise," she said. "Now go. _Go._" Her eyes were stinging, and she looked hastily away from him. After a second, Lucas's arms went round her and his lips gently brushed against hers.

"You're a better friend than I've ever deserved." His voice was roughened by emotion. When Ros thought it was safe to open her eyes, her vision was blurred by tears and she was alone.

Lucas North had gone.

_Thank you for reading! Please review!_


	12. Chapter 12

_CHAPTER 12_

In the immediate aftermath of Lucas's flight, Ros Myers came as close as she had ever done to resigning from the Service. She had never remotely considered doing so before; it had been so much a part of her life for so long that it had come to define her. In some of her darkest moments her career had been the sole thing that kept her head above water. It had given her back her self-respect after her father's attempted coup and eased the agony of her grief after Adam's death. She had quickly realised that she either had to accept the finality of that or sacrifice her sanity on the altar of denial. The knowledge that she was doing exactly what Adam would have wanted by stepping into his shoes had helped her to cope with it, too. She had never loved Lucas the way she had loved him, but in some ways Lucas's departure was hitting her harder. His remorse and despair, the malignant way in which he had been manipulated and the injustice of his being forced to flee in ignominy when his only real crime was youthful idiocy made her, for the first time ever, question the morality of her job and the value of continuing to do it.

She had no-one with whom to share her feelings; Harry had been too enmeshed in meetings with sundry Civil Service mandarins and an ungrateful CIA station chief, trying to smooth feathers that were not so much ruffled as ripped out, shredded, and flying all over Whitehall. He often left Ros in charge of the Section, something she would once have relished. Now she found herself looking irritably at the new recruits – Beth Bailey, with the same film-star looks as Jo Portman but minus the girl's intelligence, and the former SBS lieutenant who Ros couldn't help but think had thrown his personality overboard along with his aqualung and flippers. She felt no affinity with either of them, and keenly missed the banter and intuitive understanding that she and Lucas had enjoyed together. Although she liked Tariq Masood, the computer expert was too young and still too much in awe of her to be counted as a friend. Ruth was too concerned about the implications of Lucas's departure for Harry to have noticed its impact on Ros. For the first time ever her authority felt like a burden and her orders devoid of purpose. As the days stretched into weeks she sat in splendid, lonely state at Harry's desk, staring out over her temporary domain, and finally wrestled her doubts into submission.

_You're staying. You have to keep your word._ She would find a way of proving Lucas North's innocence, and she would try to do it without involving Harry Pearce. There were already rumours that he might be facing an inquiry into the near-loss of Cybershell, and suspicion that he had allowed, or worse, helped Lucas North to run. If she could somehow exonerate Lucas, that would absolve Harry, too. And it would stem Ros's own silent, slow, but steady leak of faith in the job that was still, despite everything, the mainspring of her life.

As she soon found out, it was no easy task. She was supposed to be standing in for the head of Counter-Terrorism, not playing private detective. Visits to the paper archive, where some of the files from the early nineties were now stored, had to be disguised as trips to the cafeteria, and online research had to be done at her own work station when she could get to it; she could hardly use the one in Harry's office. In order to avoid prying eyes, she came to work with the lark and stayed until late. Slowly, she accumulated snippets of information that she would then surreptitiously remove from Thames House and study at home. She knew she was walking a tightrope stretched over a profound gorge labelled Serious Disciplinary Measures, but she persisted, driven by a mental image – accurate or not - of Lucas alone and in hiding somewhere, his only hope of a return to something like a normal life those four words she had recklessly uttered as he had walked out of this one. Without telling Harry, she had gone to Maya Lahan's funeral and stood at the back of the chapel clutching a bunch of red roses – clichéd, but then Lucas was a susceptible, predictable idiot where women were concerned – skin-crawlingly ill at ease, but determined to stand in for him. She had made the bloody fool a promise, and even if she had to wade knee-deep through intelligence reports online, on paper and written with a quill-pen on sodding parchment, she would keep it.

"Ros?" She jerked her head up, hastily sweeping the papers she was looking at underneath the latest intelligence digest she _should_ have been studying. Relief at seeing Ruth hovering in the doorway rather than Harry was swiftly replaced by irritation.

"_What_? Come in, don't just stand there. What is it?"

Ruth came in uncertainly and slid the door to behind her.

"It's - " she coughed nervously. "It's about Lucas."

Instantly, Ros shook her head. "Ruth, you know I can't talk about it." She had no choice. Harry had put a strict need-to-know tag on anything to do with Lucas North. He had made it crystal-clear that the list of those people with a need to know began and ended with Ros's name.

"Yes, but – but you remember - "

"Ruth," Ros said warningly.

Ruth was wringing her hands, but she stuttered on. "Y – you remember Stephen Owens?"

Ros sprang to her feet. "Ruth!" she exploded. "What part of '_I can't_' don't you understand?"

To her amazement, Ruth, whom she had expected to turn and flee, perched on the edge of Harry's sofa. For a moment the defiance in her action deprived Ros of speech.

"We – they – there was a report. This - this morning. That money … you remember I told you. He _did_ steal it, Ros. It wasn't Lucas, I was wrong." Her eyes met Ros's pleadingly, and Ros, despite herself, hesitated. "Go on."

"Don't you see?" Ruth seized the opportunity of her colleague's momentary disarray and babbled out the rest so fast that Ros could barely understand it. "If Lucas didn't do that then – then he could be – well, he might –might not be – that is, he might not have _done_ … whatever else he did … or didn't – the reason he left, I mean." Ruth shook her head and gave vent to an '_ooh'_ of pure frustration at her own incoherence. "He's probably _innocent_, Ros! We can't just let him be blamed – we have to – to – _do_ something!" She stood up eye to eye with the other woman. "_Whatever_ Harry says!"

Ros glanced out of the window, then gathered the files she had been reading into her arms and made a decision.

"Let's go and get a coffee and some fresh air," she said abruptly.

Ruth's eyes flashed; she all but stamped her foot. "I don't _want _a coffee and some fresh air!"

Ros fixed her with the stare she knew was referred to around the Grid as Ros's Laser Look.

"Yes, you_ do_."

She locked the files into her safe and hustled the intelligence analyst through the pods and up onto the roof, stopping en route for two cups of coffee. When she had steered her into the furthest corner of the roof terrace and checked that it was empty, she took a long swallow at her coffee and said fiercely: "If you run and tittle-tattle to Harry about this over tea and sandwiches with the bloody cat on Sunday afternoon I swear I'll have you back in GCHQ faster than you can say Whiskas." She checked that Ruth's face showed panic rather than righteous indignation. "I _know_ Lucas is innocent. He was set up and blackmailed."

"Set up? Black - by whom?" Ruth gasped.

Ros hesitated. "Once I tell you, you're in, Ruth. There's no emergency exit."

She thought the analyst would back off, but instead a radiant smile spread over Ruth's face.

"You're trying to help him, aren't you?" Still cautious, Ros merely pulled a '_might be, might not be' _face. "Does Harry know?"

"No. And he mustn't. He's got enough trouble. I promised Lucas, so I don't care, but I don't want _him_ involved." She let her voice drop to a steely murmur. Every Section D officer knew that it meant she was about to issue a threat. "And if he finds out, I'll know where from."

"I won't say anything." Ruth shook her head vigorously. "Do you know where Lucas is? Is he all right?"

"I don't know." Ros stirred her coffee and checked the horizon again. "Listen."

As concisely as she could, she explained to the analyst why Lucas had had to leave. Then she told Ruth about her own research into the bombing and her clandestine attempts to find information that would conclusively prove their colleague's innocence. Ruth listened in wide-eyed silence until Ros described her discovery that MI-6 had carried out an _in situ_ investigation of the Dakar bombing all those years ago.

"Well, what does it say?" she demanded. "Does it mention Vaughn – or Lucas? What conclusions did they reach?"

Ros raised her eyes to heaven. "Ruth, if I knew that, do you think I'd be standing up here playing hush-hush like a rookie on a training exercise?" She checked the roof yet again and dropped her voice even lower. "I've tried to pull it up on the shared database. It's protected with more firewalls than a match factory. _Access Denied_. I found a couple of brief cross-references, that's all. And - "

"_Access Denied?" _Ruth interrupted. "But the bombing was … ninety-three – eighteen years ago? It can't still be sensitive enough to warrant that kind of restricted access, surely?"

_That's precisely what I thought._ Ros looked at the other woman with a grudging respect.

"Exactly. And I want to know why."

"You used to be in Six," Ruth said, "don't you know someone?"

Matt Craven's name flashed across Ros's memory. She deleted it. That wouldn't work a second time. Old friends or not, Matt wouldn't just go into a securely protected database. He would _have _to report her request. And then all hell would break loose.

"I know most of the bloody _staff_, Ruth," she hissed angrily. "But they've got longer memories than you have. Or maybe you think all I have to do is sashay over there, flash my cleavage and mention Sir Jocelyn bloody Myers's name for them to hand it over on a satin cushion?"

Ruth turned crimson. "Sorry," she mumbled to her feet.

"Forget it." Ros drank the last of her coffee. She knew that the next thing she had to tell Ruth would quite likely cause the intelligence analyst to run a mile – or at least straight into Harry's office. "Look, all I've got are three names who were involved in the investigation."

"Surely they would have been senior people, Ros," Ruth said uncertainly. "They could be dead by now."

"Two of them are." Ros took a deep breath. "I wouldn't be sorry if the third were, but the bloody toad's still with us. The junior officer attached to the team was an O.R. Mace."

The ensuing silence was filled with unspoken memories of the last time the two women had been connected in any way by Oliver Mace. After a long moment, Ruth said at last:

"Ros, if there was a – a cover-up – or if _anything_ was wrong about that investigation - "

"Mace was involved. Don't you mean if anything was _right_ about it? You of all people should know that," Ros said tersely.

"Y-yes. Yes." Ruth swallowed. "But if … and if we can find out … _then_ we could tell Harry. Together. He's wanted revenge on Mace for years for what he – for – for - " she twisted her hands and stopped. "If he knew that Mace had had anything to do with what's happened to Lucas … but we need proof."

Ros nodded grimly. "Somehow we need to break their security and get hold of that file." Angrily she crumpled her empty cup into a ball. "I can't do it; I'm no bloody geek, and that's what we need. Do you think Tariq would play ball?"

Ruth's face showed her shock. "No, Ros – Ros, you can't ask him to do something like that! He's a junior officer. For God's sake, he's only been in the service a year; if anyone found out it would destroy his career!"

"The way someone destroyed Lucas's?" Ros shot back. She had always loathed Ruth's insistence on doing the Right Thing, and this was no time for an attack of moral rectitude.

"No, he's too young. It's not fair." Ruth shook her head. "Ros, we can't -

"You mean _you_ can't." Ros snorted and looked at her watch. "Well, then you go back and make sure there's a vacant seat on the moral high ground for you, Ruth. There are enough blots on _my_ copybook to give a Rorschach test to half the Section already. One more won't make much difference."

She was striding back towards the stairs, silently scourging herself for having confided in her colleague at all, when Ruth snatched at her sleeve from behind.

"Ros! Ros, listen to me! Listen! _Please!" _She was breathless from her sprint across the roof. "We don't have to! Involve Tariq, I mean – we can do it!"

Ros pulled her hand free, itching to slap Ruth with it.

"_What are you talking about?" _ she snarled.

"Get the file." Ruth beamed, and Ros gritted her teeth.

"_How_?"

"By getting someone _else_ to help us. Someone who's got the skill and whose career isn't at stake; someone who'd take the risk because they've been friends with Lucas for years. Who wouldn't be afraid of Harry and can't _stand _Oliver Mace."

Ros folded her arms. "And where am we supposed to find this glorious specimen? Are you going to put a bloody small ad in the papers? Or produce one of your unrequited lovers from GCHQ?"

Both glanced round as a small group of chattering officers emerged from the stairwell. Ruth pulled a scrap of paper from her bag and scribbled something. Ros stared at the three words.

_Malcolm Wynne-Jones._

Ros threw her coat over the back of the sofa and slumped onto it. She was bone-weary, and although she longed to immerse herself in a deep, hot, scented bath, she just couldn't summon up the energy to go and run one. She drew the TV remote towards her and pointed it at the screen instead.

' … _and the victory of the Islamist_ _parties is fraught with the potential threat of more frequent terrorism in Europe … '_

_Thanks._ She switched it off again. Even the profound, oppressive silence in the flat was more tolerable at the moment than the recital of death and disaster on the evening news broadcast. The week had been depressing enough as it was.

She wandered into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of wine. Ros rarely drank, and even more rarely alone, but sometimes needs must. She sank into a chair, closed her eyes and tried to let her body relax.

_God, what a day. _For weeks Section D had been watching a small group of Syrians that Harry suspected was planning to launch some kind of attack on a forthcoming OPEC meeting. Hours of patient, covert surveillance and of mind-numbing phone-tap analysis had been destroyed in an instant that afternoon when Beth Bailey was 'made' by one of their targets. Ros, who had been getting increasingly irritated with the young woman's smug complacency, had lost her temper completely. She called Beth in and tore her off a lacerating strip; while that made her feel a tiny bit better, it did little to repair the ruins of the operation or salvage the hundreds of hours of effort that had gone into it. Harry had been equally livid, and because Ros had already sent Beth home by the time he found out, took his frustration out on her instead. Ros had bitten her lip and said nothing. She and Harry both knew that it was Lucas's absence that was causing the problem. Had he been there, he would have been able to supervise Beth and Dmitri in the field. Alone, Ros was just stretched too far. But to mention it would merely have triggered a further tirade, so Ros had let Harry vent his fury and then wearily taken herself home.

And as if that wasn't enough, her secret efforts on Lucas's behalf seemed to have stalled. True, Ruth was going to see Malcolm that weekend – she had gently urged Ros to let her make the first approach alone, on the grounds that the retired technical specialist would need coaxing rather than terrifying into helping them - so there was still _some_ hope of breaking into MI-6's files on the Dakar investigation. Still, Ros was frustrated, discouraged, and feeling increasingly guilty about how little she had achieved towards keeping her promise.

_Oh, stop wallowing, Myers._ _Do something. _She pulled out the six items that constituted the week's deliveries to her PO Box from her handbag. Bank, solicitor, insurance, check-up reminder from the breast cancer people, credit card bill … _what on earth_?

She looked warily at the last envelope. It was addressed by hand, which was unusual in itself. The handwriting suggested that its owner had had several pints too many before doing the job, and her name was misspelt with a 'z'_._ The letter was postmarked London, and had been sent three days previously.

For a long moment Ros stared at it. The letter had passed the scrutiny of MI-5's postal security people, so it should be safe, but it was unusual - and unexpected. Those weren't Ros's favourite words.

In the end her curiosity won out. Holding it delicately, she slit the envelope. Inside was another, smaller one, cheap, grainy and slightly crumpled. Ros eased out one single sheet of paper, and unfolded it. It bore a pencil sketch – a fairly recognisable likeness of the infamous 'Hailing a Taxi' statue of Lenin, with his arm pointing forward into the radiant Communist future. Ros's nose crinkled in puzzlement as she examined it more closely. The statue appeared to have been draped in a blanket, not a garment Lenin often favoured, she thought, bewildered. He looked like a Mexican _bandido._

It must have been the tiredness. She was still staring at it in perplexity when she noticed the line scrawled underneath, in a hand that looked almost child-like with its shaky, uneven forming of the letters. _I miss the seaside. _With a clang that almost deafened her, the penny finally dropped.

_Commies in ponchos. 'It's run by Commies in ponchos and it hasn't got a seaside.' _She spoke the words aloud and tears filled her eyes. Her own sarcastic quip to Lucas after Sarah Caulfield had urged him to go away with her. _Barbados, Bolivia, anywhere,_ the bimbo had said. Ros had mockingly advised him to take Barbados.

_Stop blubbing, you wimp! _She had almost given up hope of hearing news of him. Now, finally … _finally_, she knew where Lucas North had gone.

There was no address on the envelope or inside it. In practical terms, nothing had changed in Lucas's situation. But the arrival of the letter had changed something in hers. As determined as she had been – and still was – to prove his innocence, Ros knew she had been timid about doing it. She had let herself be influenced by Ruth's innate caution, _and_ she had been wary of being found out. She wasn't worried about Harry's reaction, but that her illicit probing would reflect badly on him at a time when he was already skating on thin ice. Loyalty to him had been warring with her obligation to Lucas. But this wrinkled, curling sheet of paper was both a silent plea and a challenge. Now she had to – and _would_ – be bolder.

An adrenaline surge of excitement had replaced her fatigue. She got up, hurried to the phone, and was halfway through dialling Harry's number when she stopped. _Hold it, Myers. Think first. _As much as she wanted to share the news, he was still her superior officer, and she was still breaking more rules than she could shake a stick at. He could, and probably would, order her to stop. Besides, Lucas wasn't her only responsibility; she had already involved Ruth in her machinations, and Malcolm was about to get embroiled too. She owed them the news first. Ros glanced at her watch. If she set off now she wouldn't be far behind Ruth.

She snatched up her car keys, threw on her coat, and headed for the door.

_This story doesn't seem to want to stop! I hope to wind it up in a couple more chapters, though. Meanwhile … a review, please? _


	13. Chapter 13

_CHAPTER 13_

Ros got out of her car and locked the doors; the lock squawked obligingly as if in response to the mournful crying of the seagulls. She turned up her collar, crossed the road and began to walk, counting off the numbers of the bungalows lining it. _32 … 33 … 34. That's it._ Her footsteps slowed involuntarily as she turned in through the gate. She was beginning to regret her impulsive decision to join Ruth. On the drive down, her memory had unhelpfully been dredging up incidents that she would much have preferred to leave buried in the mud of the past - the death of Malcolm's friend Colin Wells at the hands of her father's conspiracy henchmen, for example. She hadn't seen Malcolm Wynne-Jones face to face since being forced to shoot Jo Portman, of whom he had been very fond, and their last conversation – if you could call it that – had been a tense and wounding verbal spat during Harry's abduction by the Russians. It was all very well coming to seek his help, but she could hardly blame him if he decided to tell her to go and take a long walk off the short pier she could see in the distance.

She blew out a long breath, straightened her spine and rang the bell. _It's for Lucas._ Malcolm had been there when Lucas had joined Section D. However he felt about helping _her_, surely he wouldn't deny him.

"Ros!" The technical specialist's solemn face broke into a wide smile. "What a surprise! Ruth's here too. What a … coincidence." The smile was replaced by wariness as he slowly uttered the word spelt D.A.N.G.E.R to any spook worth his salt. There was a pregnant pause. "Come in."

Ros followed him into the living room where Ruth Evershed was sitting in an armchair near the window, drinking a cup of tea. Ros saw shock and then exasperation flash across her face as she got to her feet.

"Ros, I thought we agreed!" The challenge in the words was unmistakable, and Ros responded to it immediately.

"Things have changed." She glanced at Malcolm, who was watching them shrewdly as they faced each other like two cats bristling for a fight.

"Is it Harry?" he asked.

"No. Lucas," Ros answered.

Malcolm's eyes narrowed. "He's in trouble?" Ros nodded. "And you need my help." She nodded again, and spoke before he could put the next, obvious question.

"And no, Harry doesn't know that we're here. Nor what I've been doing. Not yet, anyway."

"I see." Malcolm gestured to the teapot. "Would you like a cup?" Ros shook her head. "Then sit down and tell me what's happened."

He listened patiently, occasionally clicking his tongue and shaking his head in disbelief. His eyebrows shot up at the mention of Cybershell. Ros made an effort to curb her tongue and let Ruth tell her part of the story; it was, after all, her suggestion that had brought them here, and besides, Ros felt sure that Malcolm was more likely to be moved by a plea from Ruth than by one from her. When they came to the end of their tale, however, she was surprised by his reaction.

"This must be very painful for you, Ros." He finished his tea. "After Adam … and Jo. I'm sorry."

She made a dismissive gesture. "It doesn't matter. Will you help?" She winced inwardly as she heard her own voice. _Too sharp. Too demanding. He's not your subordinate now._ "Please?"

There was a brief silence. Ruth broke it.

"Malcolm … is it possible? _Can_ you help?"

He blinked. "Oh yes. Yes, with care it's possible, Ruth." The lines around his eyes crinkled into a smile. "I may be out to grass, but I don't spend _all_ my time talking to the flowers and keeping the gulls off my vegetable patch. And yes, I'll help." He looked over at Ros. "Lucas is very fond of you," he said gently. "I can see why."

Ros flushed. "I owe him. He's a bloody idiot, but he's been framed deliberately. It's a matter of justice, Malcolm, that's all. Nothing more." She lifted her chin. "What do you need?"

"Time," Malcolm said thoughtfully. "Equipment, software … that I have. But access … obviously my codes were deactivated when I retired. I can create another identity, but it will take a while."

"We don't have a while," Ros said curtly. "So use mine." She withdrew a small note-pad from her jacket and handed it to him. "It's all there."

Malcolm accepted it, watching her closely. He sounded hesitant. "This is completely illegal, Ros. I can break in, but if Six has upgraded its security or improved its detection procedures with Cybershell and I get caught using your codes - you're a serving officer. They'll throw the book at you; probably decommission you."

Ros snorted with an indifference she didn't feel. "That's the whole point, Malcolm. I'm asking you to do this; I'll take the rap. You might still get a few strokes of the cane, though. They say James Russell likes playing headmaster. So you'd better_ not_ get caught." Malcolm smiled slightly at her reference to the head of Internal Security, but she heard Ruth tut at her flippancy.

"Malcolm, you could still be prosecuted." She glanced at Ros. "No-one can force you," she added pointedly. "Yes, we need you, but it's your decision; you _can_ say no."

Malcolm sighed. "I remember Lucas joining us. Very young … twenty-two, twenty-three. He was a real string bean then, with a long nose he hadn't grown into. Awkward, too – he was very shy and unsure of himself, until Harry took him under his wing. It was the making of him. With the confidence he gave him, Lucas was the best field officer we had within a year. Harry was so proud of him, and his approval meant everything to Lucas. He worshipped Harry. "

_Still does,_ Ros thought. She quietly cleared her throat to recall Malcolm to the present. The technician smiled sheepishly.

"Sorry. Nostalgia - old man's disease. No, Ruth. Thank you, but Lucas would do the same for me. I can't say no. Not this time. Let the bloodhounds do their worst."

Ros closed her eyes for a second. "Thank you, Malcolm." The words came out on a sigh of relief.

"Just one thing. You say Harry doesn't know anything about this." Malcolm walked to the window and gazed out at the sea. "Are you absolutely sure it's right to go behind his back, Ros?" There was a mild reproach in the question and Ros shifted uncomfortably.

"It's the only way, Malcolm. If the shit _does _hit the fan then he can honestly deny all knowledge. As you say, they'll throw the book at me. He'll be safe." She swallowed hard. "I _know _Oliver Mace is mixed up in this somehow. I - I helped him to destroy a member of Section D before." She kept her eyes averted from Ruth. "I didn't mean to, but I did. I won't let him do it again. Not to Lucas _or_ Harry."

Malcolm absently pushed a window open and the sound of the waves rushed into the room. Ros watched his back. "How long do you think you'll need?"

The technician turned and rolled his hand in a '_not sure_' gesture. "Think of it as a stealthy incursion rather than a smash and grab raid. Two days, if I skip meals. And get up early."

"Sounds like a very healthy lifestyle to me." Ros smiled.

"That, Miss Myers, is because you don't eat enough to keep a sparrow alive," Malcolm retorted disapprovingly. "Ruth is staying overnight so that I can introduce her to the gourmet hedonism of Eastbourne. Will you join us?"

Ros hesitated, but then shook her head. "No … no, thank you, Malcolm. I've intruded already. I'll start back." She stood up. "Will you keep us posted?" When he nodded, she said: "Have a good evening then, Ruth. I'll see you on Monday."

Malcolm accompanied her to the door, and repeated: "Are you sure you won't join us, Ros? You're very welcome." When she declined, he said, "Ruth won't mind, you know."

_Yes, she will._ Ros was grateful for Ruth's support and for her sympathy towards Lucas, but she had no illusions. She valued Ruth as a colleague, but there was too much of the past standing between them for them to be real friends. Ros wished it were otherwise, but she wouldn't deceive herself. She managed a smile.

"Two's company, three's a crowd." _Not to mention the spectral uninvited guests – Jo, Colin, Ruth's family … _"Thank you for agreeing, Malcolm." She toyed with her car keys and kept her head down when she spoke. "Lucas took care of me … after the bombing." She could feel herself colouring. "I have to do this. I gave him my word." She forced herself to look up. "I'll tell them that I ordered Ruth and threatened you. I'll make sure you're both safe and take full responsibility - if anything _does_ go wrong."

"And _I'll_ make sure it doesn't." Malcolm lifted her hand and kissed it. "It's not true, you know, what they say about old dogs. We can still learn a few new tricks. Especially when we're an old terrier after a bone. Drive safely."

Ros walked back to her car accompanied by the rhythmic whoosh of breaking waves. _I miss the seaside._

_Not for much longer. _She unlocked the doors. When – _when, _not if – Lucas was able to come home, this was the first place she'd bring him to.

_By Monday I'll know._ Malcolm never exaggerated. _So by Monday I'll know. _The best possible way to start the week …

Knowing that it would serve no purpose to ring Malcolm every hour on the hour demanding progress reports, Ros spent the weekend trying to discipline herself into staying away from the telephone. On Saturday she submerged her impatience – literally – in the local pool, emptying her mind as she swam steadily up and down, and emerging only reluctantly when her body began gently reminding her that it had survived a bomb attack not that long ago. Sunday was less successful. Restless and anxious, she sought refuge in a cinema showing a spoof spy film. She stuck it out for twenty minutes, a silent, unmoved island barely lapped by the waves of laughter around her, and then left. _Bad idea, Ros. _She had last visited the cinema with Lucas after her release from the hospital. He had decreed that a good film would be the ideal treatment for her nightmares. They had spent two hours watching 'Happy Feet', sharing a box of chocolates and laughing like children. She couldn't bear to remember that just now.

It was such a relief to reach the Grid on Monday morning that Ros didn't even resent the pouring rain or the traffic jams it caused. When she arrived a little later than normal, Harry was already there. Ros raised a hand in greeting as she passed his office and made a beeline for her desk, giving a clipped '_good morning_' to Dmitri and Tariq and a freezing glare to Beth Bailey on the way.

She switched on her computer and shed her coat while it was booting up. _Come on, come on!_ She drummed her fingers impatiently until the screen at last lit up, opened her e-mail and scanned her inbox. _Yes!_ She clicked eagerly on the e-mail innocuously entitled '_seaside weekend_'.

"_Rosalind!_" Harry's bellow stopped the background chatter on the Grid instantly. A mug, knocked to the floor by a startled officer, smashed with a resounding crack into the sudden silence. "In here! _Now_!" Before Ros could even turn in her seat, he shouted: "NOW! Or you'll be out of that door and suspended with immediate effect!"

Ros's fingers left damp marks on the keys as she logged out of her e-mail. As she stood up, she saw Dmitri and Beth watching her. Dmitri looked worried and Beth was trying hard to stifle a smirk.

"I'll leave it open for you," Ros snapped as she passed her. She could see Harry pacing his office like a caged lion. Halfway across the Grid Ruth joined her, looking nervous but resolute.

"Safety in numbers," she murmured. "I'll come with you."

"No." Ros was surprised and touched by the gesture. "Not yet. Phone Malcolm and warn him, Ruth. If he _does_ suspend me - " she paused and Ruth finished the sentence.

"I'll carry on. Right. Good luck, Ros." She peeled off, already pulling out her mobile phone.

"What the _hell _do you think you've been doing?" Harry Pearce snarled before Ros had even managed to close the door.

"About?" Ros enquired. There was, after all, an outside chance that his summons _wasn't _to do with someone sneaking through the IT security systems at MI-6.

"Don't play dumb with me, Rosalind!" Harry smacked the button controlling his window blinds with the flat of his hand. "I had a call from Peter McFarlane at seven this morning."

_Harry's counterpart at Vauxhall Cross. _Ros moistened her lips as the blinds slid down.

"To tell me that my section chief had hacked into their system over the weekend and obtained access to a highly-classified MI-6 report on the Dakar Embassy bombing. Do you know the only reason – the _only _bloody reason – why you aren't already being questioned by Internal Security?" Before she could answer, he stormed on: " Because you nearly got yourself killed trying to save Andrew Lawrence, and Lucas _did_ save the president of Pakistan and saved Vauxhall Cross from being left with sensitive political egg all over its face in the process. McFarlane owes us. And feels he owes you – _both_ of you. So when his internal security chief came to him he phoned me instead of sending Internal Affairs straight round to your flat."

Ros swallowed. "Harry - "

"_Shut up!_ And sit down!" Harry poured two mugs of coffee from his percolator and clanked hers down so hard on the glass table that much of it spilled. "_You, _Rosalind,would be about as capable of that sophisticated an act of hacking as I would of doing a charity run for the KGB Benevolent Fund. Did you involve Tariq in this?"

"No." Ros sipped the coffee, grateful for the relief to her parched throat. "It's my doing, Harry."

Harry shook his head. "Your codes, not your doing. Who was it?" He waited. "_Who_? And exactly how long have you been ferreting around – _without _clearance, instruction or authorisation?"

Ros put the mug down and took a deep breath. "All right. I had help. But I'm not going to tell you who it was unless you give me your word that no action will be taken against them. And I've been digging ever since Lucas had to run." She pushed a stray strand of hair from her eyes. "He was framed. Used. Made a scapegoat. That report will tell us why. And prove him innocent. He's one of my team, Harry. And he's my … he's my friend." She silently cursed the lump that had risen in her throat. "I won't let him be sacrificed for the sake of bloody political expediency!"

Harry glared at her. "He's a friend of mine, too. Or had that bloody fact escaped your notice when you started on your righteous crusade, Ros?"

_Ros._ That was an improvement. Whenever Harry used her full name it spelt trouble. Cautiously, she answered: "No. No, of course not."

"Then why the _hell_ didn't you tell me what you were doing?"

"I thought you'd tell me to stop," Ros said honestly.

"_Would_ you have stopped, if I had?" He didn't wait for her reply. "No, I thought not. For God's sake, Ros, do really you think I'm such an old dinosaur? So bloody _shackled_ hand and foot by the need to kow-tow to the politicians that I'd happily throw Lucas to the wolves in exchange for another little gong and a few letters after my name?" The fury in his voice had subsided now to something closer to disappointment, and Ros felt her face colouring in shame.

"No, it – it wasn't that, Harry, I – you had troubles enough. I didn't want to expose you to the risk."

"But you'd expose yourself! That bloody loyalty of yours …" Harry shook his head. "It'll do for you one day."

"I don't care." It was the first time Ros had actually put that feeling into words, and the first time she'd really realised how much she meant it. "I promised Lucas. I want to keep my word. I don't care about it for me."

"And Malcolm? It _was_ Malcolm, wasn't it?" She started. "Ros, I_ am_ an intelligence officer, remember?" When she shrugged and nodded, he said, half to himself, "Yes, he wouldn't care either. He and Lucas were always close." He drained his mug. "Well, now you've put me so deep in McFarlane's debt that he'll be calling in favours until the Second Coming, we might as well have a look at it. Have you _got_ the sodding report?"

Ros was about to reply when the door slid open. Harry raised his eyes to heaven. "Your knuckles will get scarred one day, Ruth, from all the knocking you do. What is it?"

"I thought you might want this." The intelligence analyst handed Ros a sheaf of papers. She smiled at them both and swiftly withdrew again. Ros glanced at Harry. He shook his head ruefully.

"The _two_ of you? My God, poor bloody Malcolm never stood a chance, did he?" He refilled their mugs. "All right, let's get this Pandora's Box opened."

It took them half an hour to read through the sixteen-page report; it would have taken longer had it not been for the fact that sizeable chunks of it were in an illegible, coded gobbledegook that had seriously dented Malcolm's professional pride by refusing to yield to his attempts to break it. There was enough in the rest to confirm Ros's belief that Lucas had been the chosen scapegoat on whom responsibility for the bombing had deliberately been pinned, but to her frustration they still didn't have sufficient solid detail to provide what Lucas needed – unimpeachable testimony from someone with direct knowledge of the decision to do that. What the report _did_ do was to point up an unsavoury, murky, complicated morass of corruption, deception and concealment into which a naïve, malleable twenty-year old had become embroiled so deep that the indelible smear of it was still soiling him two decades on. And Oliver Mace's flamboyantly scrawled signature sneered up at them from the bottom of it.

"All those years," Harry said through gritted teeth when he angrily thumped the papers back in an untidy heap on the table. "Christ, he could only have been on – what, his second posting? Barely off the training course and even then …" He shook his head. "The morality of a bloody sewer rat."

"Do you think he knows it was Lucas?" Ros asked.

"I doubt it. I doubt if he even remembers the incident. What, twenty years ago? Oliver's been so deep in the political mire since then that I should think he's forgotten what it's like to be clean. He's not going to remember one foolish kid who was nothing more than a ready-made patsy, too green even to realise he was being played with like a puppet from start to finish. Bloody little fool," Harry said wearily, but there was pity rather than anger in the last three words. "He was _en poste_ in the Middle East when Lucas joined us, smarming around his own oily kind among the sand dunes. By the time he came back, Lucas was in Russian hands. They've never met. Lucas probably never saw him in Dakar." Harry's eyes glinted. "No, he won't know at the moment. But he damned well soon will."

Ros waited, but for a moment Harry was silent, pulling absently at his lower lip. At last, she ventured: "So what do you suggest I do now, Harry?"

"Mm?" Harry snapped out of his reverie. "Now?" He stood up. "I suggest you get your coat, and bring that report. I suggest you come with me and talk to Oliver Mace."

_Thank you for reading! Hope you enjoyed it. Please take an extra minute to leave a review! _


	14. Chapter 14

_Two things. One: I have no idea if Tariq could have done what I have suggested he did. Please forgive the dramatic licence! Two: my apologies to any French readers. I needed a credible villain._

_Chapter 14_

They drove in silence as Harry headed southwest towards Surrey. He had a face like thunder, and Ros felt it more discreet to hold her peace for a while. Once they were speeding along the Kingston bypass, she finally asked where they were going. She had thought Oliver Mace lived somewhere in Kensington.

"He did. Had heart surgery a couple of years ago and took early retirement. Bought a place out of town." Harry glanced across at her, his face hard. "It would take more than a couple of blocked arteries to floor Oliver Mace. He won't drop off his perch at the first question, Ros; don't be concerned for him."

Nothing had been further from Ros's mind than concern for Oliver Mace, but she didn't say so. She didn't want to push her luck any further; having twice kept Harry in the dark about her own unofficial investigations she knew she was probably here on sufferance. She flicked quietly through the pages of the report on her lap, familiarising herself with its contents, as Harry took a sharp right through Esher.

"Here." He signalled left and turned down a narrow road bordered by a rugby pitch on one side and a hospice on the other. He didn't take much care with the speed bumps, and Ros winced as the car lurched rather than eased over them, but her discomfort gave way to surprise as they entered the village proper. They might have been deep in the Cotswolds rather than on the edge of suburbia. There was a green with a large pond speckled with waterfowl, and a mixture of stone and brick-built cottages in a kaleidoscope of varying styles lining the two single-lane roads that bordered it. A large pub stood on the corner and a tiny church nestled among trees further down. Harry swung into the pub car park.

"This way." He led her down the road until they came level with a large red-brick detached house with wisteria cascading over the front of it. Ros hesitated.

"Harry, are you sure? It doesn't - "

"Look like Mace?" Harry finished.

"Well … no. More like Marple."

"Or Machiavelli," Harry said dryly.

_That's more like it. _Now they were here, Ros felt uneasy. She hadn't actually seen Mace in years, but her memories of him were crystal-clear, and none of them were good. He had used her distress and anger at her father's imprisonment with consummate skill in order to trap Ruth and manipulate Harry. _Exactly the same way as he used Lucas all those years ago. _So r_emember that, Myers. Forget what he did to you in the bloody past and make sure you stop him ruining Lucas's future._

She realised that Harry was scrutinising her. "You all right?"

"Of course," Ros said firmly. "I'm fine."

'Good." He hesitated for a second. "Just don't be surprised at anything I say or do, Ros." With a tight smile, he opened the gate. "After you."

Two sharp raps with the old-fashioned brass door-knocker produced an instant outburst of barking, and seconds later a young border collie raced around the side of the house and hurtled up to them. Ros squatted down as the animal pawed at her, frantically wagging its tail and whining with excitement.

"Hey, calm down!" as the dog licked her face. "Good girl, good girl."

"Susie!" The commanding, well-bred voice was unmistakable, but Susie took absolutely no notice. Ros stood up as Oliver Mace followed the dog into the garden. _"Susie! _Here!" At last, the dog looked up from sniffing interestedly around Ros's ankles and reluctantly answered his summons.

"Good lord, Harry. What brings you to our peaceful little village?" Mace's jowly features shaped themselves into a smile, but his eyes were cold and wary. They flicked to Ros and she saw recognition dawn. "Good grief." The depth of contempt that he managed to convey with those two words made her blood boil.

"Oliver." Harry's answering smile was about as sincere as Mace's own, but he shook the man's proffered hand. "You're looking well; rural life must agree with you. Since you ask, I'd like to seek your advice about something. Little problem we have."

Mace barked out a laugh that caused Susie to look up enquiringly. It didn't seem to be a sound that was familiar to her. "Dear me, Harry, you must be desperate. I'm finished with all that now. A civilian. Out to grass. No longer '_in the loop_' as our American cousins would say."

"Oh, I'm sure you keep in touch with a few old friends here and there." Harry clapped him on the shoulder. "Besides, it's not purely a current issue. Dates from back in the day, when we were a couple of young bloods swashbuckling our way up the ladder." He was advancing casually towards the house so that Mace had little choice but to move with him. "Old sins cast long shadows kind of stuff. Old war-horses like you and I understand the importance of the past, don't we? We won't keep you long."

Mace, who since recognising her had so far ignored Ros completely, grunted. "Oh, very well." He looked over at her and then down at Susie, who was now gambolling around Harry. "Yes, bring the bitch in with you."

Ros caught Harry's warning glance and set her jaw to prevent the escape of any one of several possible scathing put-downs. Oliver Mace was an expert in manipulation. She had fallen into his trap once, and both she and Ruth Evershed had paid the price. She wasn't about to make the same mistake again. Mace could be Lucas's return ticket to Section D, and in order to secure that she could take a few insults. Besides, revenge was a dish best eaten cold. _My time will come, you bastard._

In the living room, which looked out onto the fields of the nearby farm, Mace ungraciously waved them both to seats and poured Harry a glass of Scotch from a sideboard decanter.

"Miss Myers?" he enquired.

"Just mineral water, please," Ros said.

His lip curled. "How very healthy. Ice-cold, I presume?"

Ros returned his look impassively and accepted the glass with a wordless nod of thanks. Mace moved towards the armchair that would have allowed him to keep his face in shadow, and then realised that Harry had already sat in it. His eyebrows rose imperceptibly, but he took the other one.

"Well, this _is_ nice. Now, Harry. What is this little … 'problem' of yours?"

"Vaughn Edwards," Harry said. When Mace merely sipped his Scotch, he added helpfully, "The Fixer. Done quite a few jobs for MI-6 over the years, one way and another."

"Quite possibly," Mace allowed.

"Quite, indeed." Harry flicked his hand at Ros, and she passed over the report. Mace's eyes followed it. "Slippery little bugger by all accounts. Not above doing a little bit of double-dipping here and there. You know the kind of thing – you can rent a mercenary, but you can't buy one. Thug for hire."

"I believe that's the dictionary definition of a mercenary." Mace's voice betrayed impatience, but his eyes were calculating. "Your point, Harry?"

"He's dead," Harry said, bluntly.

"Sad," Mace said, without a trace of regret. "But then a lot of people are."

Ros saw Harry's lips tighten. "Do you remember the bombing of the British Embassy in Senegal, Oliver?" He didn't wait for an answer. "Of course you do. You were there. Wrote this report." He flicked to the page with Mace's signature and held it out. Ros would have admired the other man if his name hadn't been Oliver Mace. He glanced at it and met Harry's eyes with every appearance of boredom.

"I'm retired, old boy, not senile. I know where I was, even twenty years ago. Kind of you to come all this way to remind me, but hardly necessary. I was a junior officer _en poste_ in West Africa, attached to the investigation that wrote that _classified_ report. May I take it that your charming colleague did the digging that put it into your hands?" He turned his head towards Ros. "Congratulations, Miss Myers. I see time hasn't blunted your rather unsavoury appetite for dishing up the dirt on your fellow-officers."

Ros felt her mouth go dry, but she neither moved nor spoke. Harry looked at Mace for a long moment as if he were something that Susie might have dumped on the lawn, and then suddenly pulled out the photograph of Lucas entering the embassy, and thrust it under his nose.

"Who is that?"

Mace held up a large hand and disdainfully pushed the photograph further away from his face before he looked at it.

"Looks like the little toe-rag who planted the bomb. Planting it." He snatched the report from Harry and flung it down on the table. "He was never found, Harry! If you've read the bloody report then you must know that. If you have an axe to grind, then will you kindly dust off the moss and cobwebs and _grind_ the damned thing?"

"That 'little toe-rag'," Harry hissed, "became my section chief twenty years later. Lucas North. One of the best officers I ever had, and one who spent _eight bloody years,_ Oliver, being tortured in the cesspit of a Russian prison because he wouldn't betray this country. He is _not _responsible for that bombing and you know he isn't. We both know who is. What I _don't_ know is why. But before I leave this house, _you _will have told me."

"Will I now?" Mace drawled. "Now why would I do that?" He reached languidly towards the telephone and picked it up. "You do realise that with one call to Peter McFarlane I could put you in deeper shit for this than the horses on that farm leave every morning?" His eyes narrowed at the smile that appeared on Harry Pearce's face.

"Sadly, BT's customer service gets worse every day, Oliver. I think you'll find your phone's out of order and your Internet link down." Mace held the phone to his ear and snarled. "Oh, and don't bother with that," as the man reached for his mobile. "No signal. Sunspots, I imagine."

Ros couldn't prevent a tiny twitch of her lips as she saw the black rainclouds building up outside. It was a while since she'd seen Harry in action; his cutting edge didn't look to have suffered too much from spending most of his time behind a desk. She had seen him issuing orders to Tariq Masood before they left. Now she knew why.

"And before you think of tying a piece of rice paper with a message in invisible ink to the leg of that pigeon out there," Harry nodded towards the garden, "let me just tell you that it was Peter McFarlane who alerted me to the fact that the report was in Miss Myers's possession. Feels he owes her, you see. I passed the information to William Towers late last night. He was quite … shall we say intrigued? Feels very strongly about that bombing, even now. His uncle was a guest at the reception. Small world, isn't it? Lost three fingers in the explosion, I think he said. Don't think he'd be too pleased with anyone involved in a cover-up."

_Don't be surprised at anything I say or do, Ros._ It was a skilfully delivered blend of the truth, half-truths and downright lies, and impossible to tell where one began and the other ended if you didn't know. Mace's heavy features had turned a light shade of puce. Harry took a long swig of his whisky.

"Talk, Oliver."

Mace took his time, draining his glass and rising to refill it.

"Vaughn was working for us. Doing some of the more - unpalatable - little jobs that the Service can't be seen to be involved with."

"Such as?" Harry enquired politely.

"Doesn't your report mention these things?" Mace sneered.

"Oh, you know what the written word can be like. So unreliable. I like to get my information from what I believe the CIA describes as HumInt," Harry said. "Although it always sounds rather like an insect repellent to me. Do go on."

Mace glared. "The Senegalese were on the point of granting concessions in the Diamniado oil field. Obviously, the French were pushing hard. The Yanks too. Japan. Cuban 'help' lurking around. We needed the oil - and a foothold in the area. Our people needed a little help to nudge the decision our way. Vaughn provided it … on HMG's behalf. We'd used him before for some of our grubbier jobs. He had no provable link to the government. Totally deniable." His eyes shifted to Ros. "_He_ was a good dirt-digger, too, when it was necessary. He had a few off-the-record chats for us. Provided incentives for a couple of key officials. "

"In other words, bribery and blackmail," Harry translated.

Both Mace's chins wobbled as he laughed unpleasantly. "Oh come, Harry, you're not going to tell me you still adhere to that Dragoons code of honour of yours? It's known as 'business tactics', I believe, these days." Again he looked towards Ros. "I'm sure Miss Myers could enlighten you. Wasn't her father a leading light in business before he decided to become a full-time traitor?"

Without thinking, Ros threw the contents of her glass into his face. Both she and Mace sprang to their feet, and Susie joined them, barking furiously.

"_That's enough!"_ Harry roared over the noise. "Ros! Sit down!" He gave his handkerchief to Mace and repeated: "Sit _down_!"

With her heart still pounding in her ears, Ros did so, furious with herself for having risen to Mace's bait. Harry quietened the dog and glared at Oliver Mace. "You asked for that. Now get on with it."

Mace dabbed the last of the water fastidiously from his face and brushed a stray ice cube from his trouser leg. Then he ostentatiously turned his chair so that its back was to Ros.

"We didn't trust him. Vaughn. Not a hundred percent. You said it yourself - he was a mercenary. Go to the highest bidder. So we paid the deputy manager of the casino to keep an eye on him and report back. There was a kid who worked in the casino who used to hang around with him. That one, your – whatever his damned name is. Vaughn used him for a lot of his errands – delivering cash, documents, whatever was needed. We had no objection to that as long as the jobs got done; it served our purposes, put an extra distance between Vaughn and any representative of HMG. Vaughn would slip him a few quid every now and then, and the kid never asked questions. Seemed to enjoy it. Flattered, I suppose. Little fool." Mace's voice dripped with scorn, and Ros took a couple of deep breaths to control her anger. She knew that one more false move and Harry would order her to leave.

"I'm not interested in your opinion, Oliver, just the facts." From the tension in Harry's voice she knew the remark had got under his skin too. "Go on."

Mace gave a theatrical sigh. "The evening of the bombing our deputy manager was found with head injuries in the gardens of the casino. We got him to hospital and he came round forty-eight hours later. A couple of days before he'd seen Vaughn having a conversation with some bod in the hotel gardens. He'd listened in and seen a briefcase handed over."

_The one with the bomb in it. _Ros glanced at Harry, but his eyes were on Mace.

"And?"

"He said that he had another briefcase just like it stashed away. He'd found it in Vaughn's room and lifted it - about the time the bomb went off." He snorted. "Pestilential bloody amateurs. Robbins and Aylwin had flown in and already started the investigation, so we played the sympathy card with the Senegalese and got to the case first. Full of cash and share certificates – what that double-crossing little guttersnipe Vaughn _should_ have delivered – or have had delivered – to the embassy. I assume Vaughn bopped him to try and get it back."

"And this 'bod' of yours. Who was he?"

The other man got up and walked across to the French windows. Ros tensed, but he just gazed out for a moment and then turned back.

"We didn't know then. It was months before Six identified him. He turned out to be a Corsican, Pierre LeDantec, ex-Foreign Legion, supposedly working as a fitness instructor in Dakar. In fact he was a low-level staffer with the then SDECE."

_French Intelligence. _Ros just stifled a gasp. Harry's face was like stone.

"And what were they discussing? The weather?"

There was a pause before Mace replied. " LeDantec said: '_Il y aura une enquête. Il nous faut un bouc émissaire._' To which Vaughn replied, '_T'en fais pas. J'ai le parfait candidat. Jeune, naïf et fauche. Il travaille ici, au casino. Lucas North. Je lui montre le pognon et les documents, puis je les échange. Et il est piégé._"

Harry raised his eyebrows. His French was workable, but Ros knew he wanted Mace to say it.

" 'There'll be an investigation. We need a fall-guy.' Vaughn said, 'Don't worry. I've got just the man for the job. Young, naïve and broke. He works here, in the casino. Lucas North. I'll show him the cash and the papers, then switch the cases. And he's trapped.'

Ros felt the tension drain from her body. _Just as Lucas claimed. Thank God. _

"More 'business tactics', I suppose. The British are a security risk; don't give them the contract. And your reliable, deniable asset changed sides." Harry's face was a study in disgust. "Looks as if Lucas wasn't the only one who was played for a fool, Oliver. What is it they say – if you sup with the devil, you need a long spoon?" Mace said nothing. In the silence Harry regarded him with loathing.

"So you knew – you, Aylwin and Robbins _knew _that that boy wasn't guilty, and yet you let it be known that he was the main suspect in the bombing?"

"Oh, spare me the sermon, Harry!" Mace raised his steepled hands to the ceiling in a mocking gesture of prayer. "Yes, we'd covered _our_ connections with Vaughn, but his face was known, at least in the intelligence community. People gossip, especially in countries where the damned expats don't have much else to do. Do you think we could have risked it leaking out that a UK citizen in the employ – _we_ thought - of the British Security Services had bombed the British Embassy? And that's without the rest of it! The UK would have lost that contract – do you have any _idea_ how many jobs and how much Treasury revenue would have been lost with it? Not to mention what our attempts to - _persuade - _the Senegalese to award it to us would have done to our standing in the rest of black Africa! The French needed a scapegoat. So did Vaughn. So did we. And there he was. The bigger picture, Harry! Your young drifter did us all a favour. They both ran – we never found a trace of either of 'em. I doubt they ever met again."

"Oh, they met," Harry growled. "Believe me. Vaughn sent that photograph to the Foreign Office, us, Vauxhall Cross … and because of it, my officer's in hiding and on my own bloody terrorist watch list, Oliver!" For the first time, his voice rose to a shout. Ros shot him a glance. "Your deputy casino manager. How did you get him to stay silent about what he'd seen and heard? Or has he been pushing up mangroves somewhere in Dakar for the last twenty years?"

Mace laughed sourly. "Robbins and Aylwin didn't have the balls. Paper-pushers. So we bought him off and got him out of the country."

"I assume he didn't go to France," Harry said dryly.

Mace snorted. "Hardly."

"Then where?" Harry demanded.

There was silence. "Here," Mace said finally. "Brought in as a refugee from the Ivory Coast; they were slaughtering each other there at the time. Still lives in London. Six won't let you talk to him," he added petulantly. "He's been under protection for years."

Harry turned his glass in his hands. "Oh, I won't need to, Oliver." He bared his teeth in what might have passed for a smile, Ros thought, if you were seriously short-sighted. "You see, I have all the proof I need. In your own words." He got to his feet.

Somehow, Ros kept her face blank. She knew neither of them were wired; Harry had said that Mace would have been alert to the possibility and checked for one. She wasn't sure _what _he was doing, except possibly trying a colossal bluff.

"You're lying." It was like watching two poker players. "You're not wearing a wire."

"A wire?" Harry's smile widened. "Tut tut. Oliver, you really _are _a little bit out of touch. How twentieth-century, as my young tech geek says. You see, your phone, as well as having been temporarily disabled by him, has also been hacked. And – though please don't ask me for the technical details - when you tried to make that call, you obligingly activated a bug. Which means that Section D will now have a high-quality, digital record of every word you've said."

The silence stretched out so long that the dog started to whine and whimper, unsettled by the electric tension in the air. When Mace finally broke it, it was with a bellow of laughter that made Ros jump.

"You bastard," he said.

"I like to think so." Harry looked across at Ros. "Ros, I think Susie might appreciate a little stroll in the garden for a few minutes?"

"Of course, Harry." She obediently got to her feet. The border collie jumped and barked around her as she crossed the room.

"Miss Myers." Oliver Mace looked down; he was a clear head taller than she was. "A delight, as always. Would you like me to bend so that you can spit in my eye as you're so clearly longing to?"

Ros met his eyes. "You're not worthy of my spit," she said, and walked out of the room.

She sat on the garden wall and threw a ball for the ecstatic collie for fifteen minutes until Harry emerged.

"Let's go," he said abruptly. "We have what we need."

Ros looked over his shoulder. Oliver Mace was standing at the window, smoking a cigar and watching them.

"Harry, he could bypass Six and report this straight to the Home Office or the JIC."

"He won't. He can't go to the Home Office because of Towers's uncle. The JIC never acts without instructions from the Home Office or Downing Street, and Downing Street would need a report from Towers. Which it won't get." Harry held the gate for her. "Ros, no-one will want the lid off this particular Pandora's Box. And though I despise a lot of what Mace is, he's served the country in his way, too. I gave him my word I wouldn't rattle any more cages if he confirmed the accuracy of his story in writing. Stating he was making it freely and not under duress." He tapped his jacket pocket. "In here." He turned and looked back at the house. The broad silhouette at the window briefly inclined its head, then turned and walked away. Harry briskly set off back up the street and Ros hurried to catch him up.

"According to his file Towers's father was an only child."

For the first time, Harry Pearce's smile was genuine. "I know."

Ros blinked, and then she laughed. She simply couldn't help it.

"He was right. You really _are_ a bastard."

"Why, thank you, Miss Myers. Do you know what he said to me once you'd gone? I told him I couldn't do anything about the lives Vaughn took but at least I'd stop the bombing destroying another one. He said '_The slimy little oik put one over on us, yes, but in the end sympathy got us the contract, Harry. Gave us a foot in a sensitive area, saved thousands of jobs. Avoided a scandal. Called in some favours from the French that probably saved far more lives than we lost in the bombing. Weigh all that in the balance against seventeen lives and the smearing of a stupid, gullible kid, and we didn't do so badly. The moral compass is a very unreliable device, old chap. Changes direction with every shift of the political wind." _Ros made a moue of repulsion as Harry sighed and passed his hand over his eyes. "The trouble is I'm not so sure he's entirely wrong. This is a filthy bloody business."

There was a moment's silence and then he produced a smile. "Let's get out of here and breathe some fresher air. Get the taste of expediency out of our mouths. I know of an equally good pub five minutes drive away. We can raise a toast to Lucas. Once I get the arrest warrant withdrawn I can take him off the watchlist myself." He grimaced. "Thank God the D-notice worked long enough for the press to lose interest."

"Think that football star's getting caught with his pants down did that," Ros said sardonically. "And once that's done - "

"It'll be safe for him to come home." Harry turned towards the main road and left the rustic charms of West End and the macabre secrets it concealed behind them. "If we knew how the hell to find him and tell him that."

Ros Myers hesitated. Then she allowed herself a smile.

"I think we do, Harry. I think I know where he is."

_Not an easy chapter to write. Hope you enjoyed it nonetheless. Please review! _


	15. Chapter 15

___Well, here it is. Endings are not my strong point, and I wish I could have written this one better, but this is the best I could manage._

_Chapter 15_

"Miss Marshall? Would you like something?"

Ros, who had been watching the rolling fields of the Home Counties tilt and slide under the wing of the climbing aircraft, hastily looked around. "Sorry – oh, thank you." She took a glass of champagne from the tray the stewardess was holding out to her.

"And the menu card for dinner?" They exchanged smiles – both equally false, Ros thought. She sipped her champagne as ragged clouds drifting past like strands of discarded cotton wool replaced the view, and slid up the frosted glass panel dividing her seat from her neighbour's. _The advantages of a window seat in business class._ Now she could pretend the other 360 passengers didn't exist, and Rachel's thoughts could be her own.

She reclined the seat and stretched her legs up onto the foot-rest. A month had passed since the day when she and Harry had visited Oliver Mace and she had told Harry about receiving Lucas's drawing. He had virtually spluttered his whisky across the pub table at the news, and had at once ordered Dmitri Levendis to get the envelopes checked for fingerprints. It had taken a while, since there was a mosaic of prints including Ros's own and Lucas's. Eventually forensics had identified one set that came up on the National Criminal Database; the owner, now a financial journalist, had once, in his heady student days, been caught selling cocaine. Ros, accompanied to her disgust by Beth Bailey, had paid a visit to his now very respectable, Establishment home in Surrey. The flashing of her MI-5 ID card elicited a positively embarrassing eagerness to help, especially when she hinted that the man in Bolivia on whose behalf he had carried the letter might just constitute a threat to national security. Faced with Ros's iciest stare, the journalist had stuttered out an explanation of going to a bar in the San Pedro district of the city one evening; the man, he explained, had been working there. He hadn't _threatened_ him, or anything. Decent type of chap, and he'd shown him what was in the envelope, just a drawing, seemed innocent enough … Ros had cut his babbling short once she had ascertained that the idiot couldn't remember what the bar was called; the closest he could get was _some long Indian name_, although he _did_ recall that it wasn't far from the city's main prison. She had left Beth Bailey to get him to sign a copy of the Official Secrets Act – that should just about be within her compass - and gone straight to Harry to ask for authorisation to fly to La Paz.

"Miss Marshall? Have you made your selection?"

Ros ordered her meal and allowed the woman to top up her glass. It had been fairly hard to obtain that authorisation; the very things that made Bolivia a safe haven for Lucas – a radical left-wing government, distinctly chilly relations with several Western countries and no judicial co-operation treaty with the UK – meant that it was normally off-limits to an MI-5 officer. Harry had enlisted the help of a sympathetic Peter McFarlane, taken Ros – '_the officer who would have sacrificed herself to save your predecessor, Home Secretary' _– to plead her cause with William Towers, and eventually the green light, albeit still bearing shreds of red tape, had been given. She had ten days in which to find Lucas North and bring him home; that was all Harry had been able to give her. Ros understood that. After all, the world's terrorists weren't going to take even ten days break, and he needed his senior officers back on the Grid. So find Lucas she would – and before the deadline.

Once dinner was over, she had another look at the preparations she had made over the last few evenings. She had acquired a detailed street map of La Paz and divided the San Pedro district into sections. She planned to start at the prison and work outwards. The whole plan was tenuous, being based entirely on the journalist's information, but Ros knew it was the best she had.

She yawned and checked the plane's position. They were just approaching the Azores, with the immensity of the Atlantic spreading out like a deep blue ink blot across the screen. The crew was dimming the lights, and around her Ros could sense people settling down for the night. She put her own bed flat, draped the blanket over herself and followed their example.

oOoOoOo

For the next week, she systematically scoured the hot, noisy streets of the San Pedro district for hours each day, dropping in to every bar she could find, discreetly asking about a _gringo_ barman. She kept her questions as infrequent as she could, mindful that if Lucas _was_ here and got wind of the fact that someone was asking about him he could become alarmed and run again. It was tedious and exhausting work, made more so by the altitude. In Peru Ros had never had a problem with it, but in Peru she hadn't been trying to cope with damaged lungs and the after-effects of major thoracic surgery. She often found herself struggling for breath, and at night was occasionally forced to use an inhaler. Stubbornly, she ignored the problem and battled on. She would _not_ leave this damned country until she had Lucas North in tow.

Her break came on the seventh day of the search. It had been cold enough to make her shiver when she set out in the early morning; by the afternoon she was drenched in sweat and her throat caked with dust in the dry air. Reluctantly she called a break and took a seat in the shade of a tiny _cantina_ in which she had just made yet another fruitless enquiry of a sullen owner. She ordered a pineapple juice and closed her eyes for a second, aware that her time was running out. _Damn you, Lucas North, for being so sodding expert at going undercover!_

The clink of glass on metal announced the arrival of her drink. Ros wearily opened her eyes. "Gracias."

The wizened old _mestizo_ who had brought it glanced over his shoulder.

"_Estas buscando el Pintado?"_

_The Painted One._ Ros jerked up straight. _Lucas's prison tattoos. _She nodded.

"_Si. Si, pintado en todo el cuerpo superior."_

The Bolivian beamed a gummy smile at her. "_En la escuela." _He rattled off directions to the school. Ros thanked him, doubled his tip and gulped down her drink. Then she began to toil slowly up yet another slope. Breathing was painful, and she was slightly dizzy. Whether this was Lucas or not, today's search was going to have to end soon. _Come on, Myers. You're not a bloody invalid._ _How many 'painted' gringos can there be in this damned town?_

She made it round the corner and stopped to catch her breath, supporting herself against a wall. He had said that the school was a pink building. She was about to curse him for getting it wrong when the sun came out from behind a cloud. _Is that a trace of rose underneath that white over there?_ A rickety wooden ladder was propped against the side of a low building with a corrugated iron roof. From her vantage point she could just see a man halfway up it. Ros swallowed. She wasn't sure if her heart was beating so rapidly with anticipation or from the altitude. She crossed the road and entered the yard just as the workman descended to the ground. He was wearing shorts, an old T-shirt and a battered straw hat like any _peon,_ but Ros knew.

"Hola." At the sound of her voice he turned sharply.

"Que quie - " he stopped in mid-sentence. "_Ros_?"

"In the flesh," she answered.

"_Bozhe moi." _Incongruously, Lucas stammered the words in Russian. The paintbrush slipped from his grasp and fell into the can, splashing white paint down his leg. He didn't notice. "Y – you … how - "

"Instinct, and a lot of walking." As Ros spoke, she remembered just how much. Her legs ached, her lungs were burning, and her head had started to throb. As she looked around for somewhere to sit down, Lucas hurried to her.

"You shouldn't be walking around in this heat or at this altitude." She felt his arm curve round her waist. "Come inside."

Ros didn't protest; she was feeling slightly faint. It was dim and refreshingly cool inside the building, although it smelt strongly of paint. She groped her way to a wooden bench and drank gratefully from the bottle of mineral water Lucas offered her.

"All right?" He crouched down in front of her, peering worriedly into her face.

"I'm fine." Ros gave him back the bottle, and then realised what she'd said. "Isn't that where we left our last conversation?"

Lucas laughed, but the laughter was suffused on tears, and he still looked dazed with shock. "I can't believe it's you."

"You're the one in disguise." Ros pulled his hat off, and simultaneously removed her own. "That better?" He nodded, but she could see he was still struggling to compose himself. "I'd have sent an e-mail normally, but - "

"Yeah. Yeah, I …" he stopped and tried again. "Sorry, it's just – I didn't – I didn't think I'd ever see you again." He stood up and wiped ineffectually at the paint streaking down his shin, half-turning away as he did so. Ros fanned herself with his hat to give him time; there was a lump in her own throat. After a moment, Lucas said; "Is everyone … on the Grid … is everyone all right?"

"Everyone's fine." She grinned. " Harry still selects his frown with his tie in the morning, Ruth's still fussing about his blood pressure and his intake of Scotch, and Beth's still smirking for England." For the first time she saw a genuine smile on Lucas's face, but it was tinged with apprehension.

"Then – you - " he stopped helplessly. Ros answered the question he couldn't put into words.

"I came to brush up my Quechua." She rolled her eyes. "I found the proof! I've come to take you home, you bloody idiot!"

Lucas stared at her, speechless. At that precise moment two small boys burst in through the open door and rushed up to him, chattering excitedly in Spanish. Lucas squatted level with them. He clearly didn't understand more than a few words, but he nodded, smiled, and said '_muy bien_' encouragingly several times. Watching them, Ros wondered how on earth she could ever have thought him capable of deliberately placing a bomb.

"Local fan club?" she enquired mockingly when the children had hugged him with obvious affection and run off again.

"No, no." Lucas looked embarrassed. "I play football with them sometimes. They go to school here."

"I thought you worked in a bar," Ros said.

"Yeah, I – I do." He shrugged. "I just help out here. Odd jobs. Makes me feel useful." He gave that quick, self-conscious smile of his, and suddenly Ros was back on the Grid, talking over an operation with him. "Ros, I – do you – are you serious?"

Ros gave a snort that turned into a cough. "_Yes_, Lucas, I'm serious. I've got your bloody plane ticket in my hotel safe! Look, I don't really want Dulux lung on top of lack of oxygen." Her eyes were starting to water too. "Can we go somewhere where we can actually breathe, and I'll tell you?"

"Yes. Yes, of course." He made a visible effort to collect himself. "Just give me a second to tell them I'm leaving."

Ros waited outside in a patch of shade until he returned and said, "I don't live far from here if you're not too tired." He pointed. "Up there."

_Up? _Ros's every muscle howled in protest, but she nodded stoically. She could just feel herself beginning to wheeze when Lucas said, "Here." He led her down an impossibly narrow passageway that opened up into a courtyard surrounded by low-built adobe houses like the one they had just left. "It's just a room, nothing much."

"You mean – I have to – do – without … a – jacuzzi?" The effort to walk and talk simultaneously made her pant, and Lucas's eyes filled with concern. He slipped his arm through hers, but kept up the banter as they reached the door.

"Oh, I can offer one of those whenever it rains. The drains overflow and I get a whirlpool out there." He threw back the shutters and gestured out into the yard. "Full of mud and volcanic dust. You can bathe and exfoliate at the same time."

Ros gave him an old-fashioned look, but at the same time, her heart soared at his tone. The old Lucas North, her colleague - her _friend_ - was still there. She subsided with relief onto the bed while he busied himself with the electric kettle. After a moment he handed her a mug.

"Mate tea," he explained. "It'll help."

_I know that._ Ros didn't say it. Lucas was simply carrying on where he had left off; taking care of her. She sipped the tea and pulled a face at the bitter taste. "Are you sitting comfortably?" He joined her on the bed, propped himself against the wall and nodded. "Then I'll begin."

oOoOoOo

The sun slipped down behind the mountains as she talked; Lucas had never known Oliver Mace, and to make her explanation complete she also told him of the man's past involvement with Section D. Lucas didn't say a word, and when she finally came to the end she gently poked him in the ribs. "Hey. You still with me?"

"Yes." The room was in shadow now, and she sensed rather than saw him stir. "Yes, I'm with you." He got up, closed the shutters and flicked on a lamp. "Ros, I – I can't quite – I don't think I can talk about it … yet." He gave a slight, apologetic smile. For a second Ros felt impatience flare up. She quashed it. _Give him time._ She had been prepared for this moment; had spent hours anticipating it. But she knew as well as anyone that good news – even the _best_ of news - could be as much of a shock as bad if you weren't prepared for it. And this had come out of the blue for Lucas.

"Sure." She hesitated. "Look, I need to get back to the hotel and change." Because of the altitude, the evening temperature always dropped sharply. "I'll freeze dressed like this. Come with me; the restaurant's not bad, and I'm starving. Although," she raised an eyebrow, "you might need to change too. The Gaugin look suits you, but I don't think it's quite the thing for the Osira."

She was relieved to see an answering smile flicker across his preoccupied expression.

"I'll take a quick shower." His voice quivered. "Ros … how on earth can I repay you for this?"

_Shit. _The one thing Ros _didn't_ want him to do was go all emotional on her.

"_Feed me!_' she shot back. "What is it with you, you would have starved me in Clapham as well!"

To her relief the flippancy worked; Lucas smiled and disappeared into the tiny shower. Ros took out her mobile and typed in a text. _Luggage traced. No damage. Will be returned on schedule._ She pressed the 'send' key and dispatched it to Harry Pearce.

oOoOoOo

Lucas insisted on taking a taxi, refusing to let her walk any further, and Ros was shaken at how pleased she was by the solicitude that would usually have irritated her no end. She installed him in the hotel restaurant with a pisco sour while she showered and changed. The text message arrived as she was dressing._ Don't let it out of your sight. If it gets lost again I'll sue the carrier._ Ros chuckled, and returned downstairs. As she reached the table, Lucas looked up and smiled.

"Now you look like you." There was something like relief in his voice.

"I could say the same." He was wearing jeans and a heavy woollen sweater – local, Ros guessed. "Let's order before I swoon."

When they had, there was a brief, awkward silence. Ros raised her glass. "Well … welcome back."

He touched glasses with her, but he looked uncertain. Ros sipped. "What?"

"May I ask you something?" he said, hesitantly, addressing the table-top rather than her. When Ros nodded, he asked: "Do you know what … what happened to Maya?"

Ros told him where the doctor had been buried. She could see that his eyes were over-bright, and wasn't surprised when he muttered an apology.

"It's all right," she said in as matter-of-fact a tone as she could manage. "It's hard when you lose someone you love like that." _I should know._

"I'm not sure I did love her," Lucas said quietly. "I think I loved the _idea_ of her … of what she represented in the past." He gave a slight shudder. "But I got her killed. If I could have gone to the funeral at least … taken some roses …"

"_Vaughn_ got her killed," Ros said sharply, "not you. And you were represented at the funeral. I took roses for you."

"_You_ did?" Lucas blinked. "The – how did you know? About the flowers?"

"I know you," Ros said dryly.

Lucas still looked bewildered, but he put his hand over hers and kept it there. "Ros … I don't know how to say this."

She wanted to say '_try putting it into words,'_ but it was obvious that he was struggling, so she didn't. Lucas gulped.

"I don't want you to think I'm being ungrateful. I can't think of _anyone_ who would have done what you have. Stuck your neck out like this, put your own career at risk for a – for a bloody _fool _like me. It's more than I deserve … more than I had any right to expect from you." He stirred the ice in his glass. "But – but that's you. What about the others? How will they feel?"

The waiter brought their soup and Ros waited until he had left. "Lucas, I told you Ruth and Malcolm helped me. They did it because they wanted to. I didn't force them." She left unspoken her conviction that she _would_ have done had it become necessary. "They want you back too." She paused, remembering Malcolm's words. "But you mean Harry, don't you?" Lucas shrugged acknowledgement. "Lucas, Harry believes in second chances. If he didn't, I'd either be in a cell alongside my father or rotting in exile in Russia. Look," when he said nothing, "you've been his protégé all these years. You still are. He'd do anything to fight your corner."

"I know that. But I – how can he ever trust me again? After I've been so – so … gullible? So bloody _stupid_?"

"Well, that's one way of describing it," Ros said. "You could also say you were decent, honest and trusting. Too much so maybe, but that's not a crime. Theft, murder and treason are, but Vaughn committed those, not you. What you've done for the service over the last twenty years far outweighs what happened in Dakar." His eyes flicked to her and away again. Ros freed her hand and tweaked the end of his nose. "Look at me. I'm not planning on talking to the crown of your head all night." She waited until he met her eyes. "I've got something to tell you about Harry."

There was another pause while the soup was replaced with their main course. Lucas looked almost panicky. "What? What's wrong?"

"God, but you're a worry-guts," Ros sighed. "_Nothing's wrong._ He's retiring."

She was rewarded for her revelation by being hit in the face by several drops of gravy as Lucas dropped his fork.

"Harry? _Retiring?"_

"Not immediately." Ros calmly carried on eating, remembering that she had reacted in more or less the same way when Harry had broken the news to her in the pub. "He says he'll stay with us until the Olympics are out of the way in 2012."

"Thank God for that!" Lucas sputtered, wiping his mouth with his paper napkin. Most MI-5 officers were dreading the London Olympics. "But why did he –" he stopped. "Not me – it's not because of this, is it?"

"No, it isn't, bighead." For a moment Ros savoured what she was about to tell him. "Remember when I was in intensive care?"

Lucas pulled a face. "I could hardly forget. He all but moved into your room. Barely left it."

"Mm." Ros refilled their wine glasses. "Well, it seems that when he _did, _he asked Ruth to marry him."

This time she was forced to get up and pat Lucas on the back to dislodge a piece of meat that had gone down the wrong way.

"S – some timing," he croaked when he had his breath back.

"I gather that's exactly what Ruth said," Ros said wryly. "She turned him down. But it seems that lately she's been coming round a bit. And he's had enough of the Service, he says. So he's planning on retiring post-Olympics and changing her mind. But he has conditions."

"Conditions?" Lucas had stopped eating altogether.

"He wants to name his replacement." Ros watched him. "Me."

"_You? _But – but you're a field officer. You'd go behind a desk … willingly?"

"Not entirely," Ros said. She told him what she had suspected and had confirmed by her experiences over the last week: that she would be unlikely to return to her level of fitness pre-bombing, and that her chest would probably always be a weak point. "And I had conditions of my own."

"Which are?"

"I still want to be allowed out into the field whenever and as long as I can cope with it. And I insisted on choosing my own Section Chief. He agreed."

A smile spread over Lucas's face; for the first time it lit his eyes too. "You're incredible." He leaned across the table and kissed her. "You deserve it, Ros. The Service doesn't know how bloody lucky it is."

Ros stared at him in complete exasperation as their plates were cleared. _Aren't you even going to ask? _

"Ask what?" She must have spoken out loud. Lucas, incredibly, looked puzzled, and Ros realised she was actually going to have to spell it out.

"My Section Chief," she said again. "You. Harry agreed."

There was a very long silence. Eventually, Lucas said softly, "Do you remember how you quoted Tsvetayeva at me? When Harry was - "

"Questioning you. Yes. _A host of low truths."_

He nodded. "Do you know these lines? '_I thank you from the bottom of my heart, For loving me so much quite unawares. For nightly peace that you will never thwart, For twilight dates that cannot be more scarce. For moonlight walks that we will never start, And for the sun above that'll never wear us. For you, alas, who are not obsessed with me; For me, alas, with no obsession either.' "_

There was an expression in his eyes that Ros hadn't seen since the death of Adam Carter, and now it was she who lowered her gaze. _No. No … I didn't._

"Ros," Lucas said, quietly. "Look at me."

_Touche. _She looked up defiantly. "No, I didn't. And for your information, the only moonlight walk _I'm _going to do is up those stairs to bed."

"For some nightly peace?" he suggested as they got to their feet. Before she could say anything he put his arms round her and drew her close. "What you've done means everything to me, Ros. Whatever it takes, I won't let you down. Never. Not again." He murmured the words into her hair, then gently tilted her face towards him and kissed her. "Thank you. Thank you so much." He released her and stepped back. "I'll get lost now and let you rest."

"You can't." Ros didn't know which of them the words surprised most. She drew her phone from her pocket and showed him Harry's message. Lucas read it and then looked down at her, his blue eyes a mixture of amusement and perplexity.

"See? Can't let you out of my sight - by order. So you'll have to stay." Ros's throat was dry and she felt slightly dizzy again, but this time she couldn't blame the altitude, and it wasn't heat that was turning her palms damp. _I was always bloody useless at this._ Hot on the heels of the silent admission came the thought that actually, she wasn't. If she was on an operation she could flirt and seduce with the best of them, probably better. It was in real life that she so completely and _humiliatingly_ lost her touch.

"Well, it could be worse." Lucas's eyes crinkled in a smile that irradiated the whole of his face, and she was swept by a wave of grateful relief. "He could have sent Dmitri." Without a word they moved towards the stairs. "Or Beth." Ros snorted. "God forbid. I'd be halfway to the Chilean border by now." He slid an arm around her waist, and after a split second's hesitation, Ros reciprocated. When they entered the room, Lucas smiled at her. "Just right for two."

"Three, actually." Ros pointed at the obligatory large photograph of the Bolivian president, Evo Morales, in indigenous costume. They both spoke at once.

"_Commies in ponchos_!" They burst out laughing, and this time when Lucas hugged her, Ros didn't hold back. When her mobile bleeped both swore, Lucas in Russian and Ros in ripest Anglo-Saxon. She tore the device from her pocket.

_And don't waste time. _Harry Pearce's text read. _Get a move on. That's an order. _

Laughing, she showed it to him. Lucas grinned.

"Well, it _is_ an order from the Chief. Shouldn't we obey it?"

Ros switched the phone off, threw it into an armchair and wound her arms around his neck. "Of course we should. Immediately."

So they did.

OoOoOoOo

_I have loved writing this story; I hope you enjoyed reading it. Many thanks to everyone who did, and special thanks to those who took time to leave such kind reviews. Enormously appreciated. :)_


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